Report on AI in education: GenAI growth outpacing safeguards for school staff and students
Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is having a big impact on education. The IEU welcomes the federal government’s response, including the Study Buddy or Influencer report, released overnight.
“This parliamentary report is crucial to guiding the safe and ethical use of GenAI in classrooms,” said IEUA NSW/ACT Branch Secretary Carol Matthews. “But the reality is that GenAI is outpacing efforts to provide a comprehensive regulatory response on behalf of teachers, school staff and students.”
The 126-page report follows a 16-month Parliamentary Inquiry and contains 25 recommendations designed to take up the educational opportunities afforded by GenAI, while ensuring adequate safeguards and protections. Key aspects include:
- promoting GenAI safeguards and developing new standards and frameworks
- the use of GenAI education-specific tools and resources
- integrating AI literacy across all subjects in the next school curriculum review
- supporting the previously developed Australian AI in Schools Framework.
The IEU provided a Parliamentary submission and appeared before the House Standing Committee.
“The voices of IEU members provide first-hand accounts of how GenAI is impacting schools and we note the inclusion of many of these concerns in the report’s recommendations and the many citations of our union’s contributions,” Matthews said.
“We emphasise collaborating with teachers and their unions to develop guidelines that uphold academic integrity and embed ethical concerns and IT literacy. Inequitable access to technology and GenAI opportunities for disadvantaged students are an urgent priority.”
IEU submissions and the Parliamentary Report highlight the impact of GenAI on teacher workload and staff wellbeing. “While the technology has the potential to reduce some administrative tasks, there is also the possibility of adverse impacts on staff,” Matthews said.
“These threats need to be identified and carefully managed. We urge school employers to work with the IEU and our members on shared responses to workload and safety concerns.” These include:
- Training must be done on paid time – teachers’ working hours are already too long.
- Teachers and school leaders are not ‘AI enforcement police’. Any new assessment and/or anti-plagiarism measures to uphold academic integrity must not add to already excessive workloads.
- There have been disturbing cases of AI ‘deepfake’ harassment of female teachers and students. A decisive and zero-tolerance response is needed in every school to stamp out such behaviour.
The IEU is also concerned about protecting staff and student data so GenAI tools do not store or sell it to third parties. “The IEU also supports the government ensuring independent researchers have ‘under the hood’ access to algorithmic information to prevent deceptive and malicious content finding its way into classrooms,” Matthews said.
The IEUA NSW/ACT Branch represents over 32,000 teachers, principals and support staff in Catholic and independent schools, early childhood centres and post-secondary colleges.
Authorised by Carol Matthews, IEUA NSW/ACT Branch Secretary