International Conference on Recent Trends in Computing, Communication and Networking Technologies

(ICRTCCNT’19), Kings Engineering College, October 18-19, 2019, Chennai, Tamilnadu, India.

Artificial Intelligence for Educational

Applications in the Context of Prime Minister's
New Education Policy (NEP)
Ms.SUJATHA RAMESH*1 , Dr. K. NATARAJAN2
1
Curriculum Development Director, LEAD School, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, sujatha.natraj@gmail.com
2
Scientist and Chief, Advanced Research, ISRO (Retd.), Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India,
deanvcet@gmail.com

Abstract—During the recent past, Artificial Intelligence (AI)
has become ubiquitous and has made inroads in all walks of
life including education. This study examines the possible
impact of AI on the New Education Policy (NEP)-2019
envisaged by the Ministry of Human Resources Development
(MHRD), Government of India, starting from kindergarten
level of education to doctoral programs, in Schools, Colleges,
Universities, and Institutes. While AI may not replace
teachers, its synergistic use with other educational
technologies as well as the teachers would give optimum
benefits from the point of view of NEP, so that quality
education is available even to rural students.
Keywords---Artificial Intelligence, educational applications,
relevance, New Education Policy, HRD Ministry.
I.INTRODUCTION
Computer applications for educational purposes are
not new to India. Nearly three decades back, a techno-
economic feasibility study was made [18], where the
investigators have explicitly forecast the impact of
computer-based systems for every kind of application in
India. However, the computer technologies have not yet
produced dramatic impact on education. The introduction
of Artificial Intelligence (AI), coupled with the
availability of enormous, trained manpower will
certainly result in enhanced productivity in a country
like India, where illiteracy percentage is high.
Innovation like AI has the capability to implement tasks
that traditionally needs human intervention: for instance,
speech recognition. The payoff from Computer Assisted
Instruction (CAI) has been hitherto, disappointing.
However, the recent developments in AI have been
encouraging for educational applications, leading to
intelligent CAI, to handle varied courses [5]. While AI
and other educational technologies are used to a great
extent in USA, a country like India has only made a
beginning, according to a recent study [11].
Today, the half-life of a new skill is about five
years. Compare this with the industrial revolution era
when skills were stable for up to 20 years. According
to World Economic Forum (WEF), substantial
percentage of school children finally do jobs that they
have never learnt before [14].
1
In effect, any skill or knowledge gained in
school might be entirely irrelevant to be used. Under-
graduate and graduate-level skills are also becoming
rapidly obsolete. It is reported [15] that software
engineers must now redevelop skills every 12–18
months and the urgency of the problem is stressed
through the White Paper: Rewriting the Rules for the
Digital Age. Since the skills need to be constantly
updated by everyone for survival, AI will prove to be
progressively an important tool.
In some ways, we look towards using AI to
teach AI and use Big Data to teach about Big Data, and
indeed, several emerging technologies. Content may be
sourced from a variety of structured as well as
unstructured sources to meet modern curricular needs.
These are then made available to students through
educational mechanisms ranging from formal
classrooms to online learning circles to individual-
learning apps. The educator may be just the machine or
an amalgamation of man and machine. The availability
of the educator may be at specific times or on-demand.
A machine-teacher may take the form of a chat-bot for
instance, to clear common doubts. The role of the
teacher may be to provide formal lectures (say, through
recorded video, live webinars, physically collocated
seminars etc.) or to simply clear doubts as and when
they arise. Learners, educators and indeed even
external parties like subject matter experts may
collaborate using discussion forums or over mini
projects to gain understanding from one another, while
working independently to do self-study and reflection.
Formative and summative assessments help the learner
as well as the educational institution understand where
the learner is grasping concepts and where he needs
additional help. Data gathered throughout the learning
process may be used to power AI engines to discover
better content, identify patterns of what is considered
relevant by this user group and transfer appropriate
content to the correct individual at appropriate
time, to enable highly efficient and personalized
learning plans. Clearly, AI can significantly impact the
future of school and college education

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3429541

 International Conference on Recent Trends in Computing, Communication and Networking Technologies
(ICRTCCNT’19), Kings Engineering College, October 18-19, 2019, Chennai, Tamilnadu, India.
II. NEW EDUCATION POLICY (NEP): 2019
The New Education Policy (NEP) has been
one of the most significant proposals of the Hon. Prime
Minister of India since 2014. This has assumed great
importance during the recent past, and is expected to
be initiated within the first 100 days of the second term
of the government of the Prime Minister. The NEP,
also known as National Education Policy, will be
handed over to the Human Resources Development
(HRD) Ministry and scrutinized thoroughly before
implementation. The last NEP was released in 1986,
with a revision in 1992. Since education needs periodic
reforms, rapid implementation of this will be in line
with the accelerated growth of India. While the details
of the policy are still unclear, the focus is likely to be
on improving the quality of education, curriculum and
roping in new technologies. There will be clarity as
continued discussions take place across the nation and
feedback obtained from students, teachers, educational
administrators and intelligentsia. A very recent study
[11] has presented a detailed review of NEP as well as
a comparative study with the education system of
USA.
As a sequel to NEP, Education Quality Upgradation
and Inclusion Programme (EQUIP) is another
ambitious policy the government has planned. The Rs
1.5 lakh crore action plan is in the pipeline, with an
aim to improve the quality and accessibility of higher
education over the next five years. EQUIP is planned
to be to higher education what the Sarva Shiksha
Abhiyan was to school education. Education under 10
different broad areas, including accessibility,
accreditation, employment, research, teacher
recruitment process for colleges and universities, are
some of the areas the HRD Ministry plans to
work on. NEP also recommends a Rashtriya Shiksha
Aayog chaired by the Prime Minister and suggests that
the HRD ministry be renamed as the Ministry of
Education.
The basic aims of NEP are: 1.To facilitate skill
development for students, 2. To provide required
manpower to the industry and academia. 3.To build
foundational pillars of Access, Equity, Quality and
Affordability. A Committee constituted for this
purpose submitted its report in May, 2016. Based on
this report, the ministry prepared 'Some Inputs for the
Draft National Education Policy, 2016'. Some of the
changes proposed are [8]:
(1). In school education, a substantial change in
educational structure and learning process is proposed.
(2). A 5+3+3+4 curricular and pedagogical structure
based on cognitive and socio- emotional
developmental stages of children is proposed.
Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3429541
It will be implemented as follows: A. Foundational
Stage (age 3-8 yrs): 3 years of pre- primary plus
Grades 1-2; B. Preparatory Stage (8-
11 years): Grades 3-5; C. Middle Stage (11-14
years): Grades 6-8; and D. Secondary Stage (14-18
years): Grades 9- 12. Schools will be re-organized
into few complexes. It promotes active pedagogy
that focuses on the development of core capacities:
and 21st century skills. There will be change in
teacher education to improve the capabilities of
teachers. The education system will have in mind
the ancient systems of Nalanda and Takshashila.
There will be re-structuring of Undergraduate
programs (e.g. BSc, BA, BCom, BVoc) of 3 or 4
years duration and having multiple exit and entry
options. (3). There will be Professional Standard
Setting Bodies for each area of professional
education and UGC [6] will transform to Higher
Education Grants Commission (HEGC). There will
be global participation in higher education. There
will also be be open and distance learning programs
and technology integration at all levels of
education, lifelong learning initiatives, enhanced
participation of under-represented groups, and
elimination of gender, and regional gaps in
education.
III. AI APPLICATIONS IN THE NEP CONTEXT
The AI technology would offer viable
solutions to some of the issues involved in the
teaching-learning process, as follows:
1. Physical Space: Are centralized classrooms
efficient? Is it ideal to have a teacher at the centre
with students lined up in benches? Are students to
be grouped in some fashion, such as age-wise?
2. Educator: Will teachers continue to be the
students' primary source of knowledge? What will
be the new role of the educator? Who are the new
educators? Curriculum & Content: What will
curriculum be comprised of or focused upon? What
is the new form of content? How will content be
transacted
3. with learners? Will learners pull the content or
will it continue to be pushed to them?
4. Learner: Who is the new learner? Are learners
homogeneous? Do all learners learn the same way -
or, does it make sense to cater to different learning
styles?
AI can be used in schools as part of
Adaptive Learning Technology. Some schools in
India already use AI and other technologies to help
the students. There are more than 20,000 CBSE
schools across the nation and these constitute a
preferred system of education in school level
because of high standards. The CBSE schools
 International Conference on Recent Trends in Computing, Communication and Networking Technologies
(ICRTCCNT’19), Kings Engineering College, October 18-19, 2019, Chennai, Tamilnadu, India.
constantly introduce innovative techniques to
improve the quality of education. AI has been
helpful in the improvement of teaching-learning
process in CBSE system that introduced artificial
intelligence as an elective paper in schools [12].
III. AI COMPANIES DRIVING THE NEW DEAL
Nowadays, AI is increasingly being used in
educational institutions at all levels to cater to the
students of all age groups. That is why Companies
have started developing AI products for education to
assist the students and teachers in rapid feedback.
Traditional blackboards and chalks may get phased
out. AI will make its presence felt in schools and the
market will improve exponentially. However, AI will
not take away the jobs of teachers; instead, it will help
them in pedagogy.
There are various technology providers [16]
that are introducing AI products to enhance new- age
learning. Evolving our educational structure typically
starts from the private sector, but new innovations are
seeping into key school districts within states as well.
Data from research firm Tracxn suggests that over 300
Indian start-ups use AI in their core product offering.
About 11% of them are based in the educational
sphere. This is a strong sign of industries outside of
technology and ecommerce using AI in their product
offering. While the ultimate goal is complete
customization, various apps and programs are helping
us along the way. Tutoring apps are customizing their
lesson structures depending on the performance of a
unique user profile. Enhanced data crunching is
making testing a more interactive phenomenon in
India. A shining example in the Indian education space
is the app Toppr. The app is utilizing best practices in
AI to ensure that there is increased engagement in the
lesson plan that the student is interacting with. As a
result, the app has produced Indian toppers that have
religiously relied on its AI- based model. The results
are stunning with Toppr. The average qualification rate
for JEE was about 20%, but Toppr students had a 36%
qualification rate. This is a significant enhancement in
the educational sphere, and schools are learning how
they can incorporate such innovations. EduGorilla is
another company that uses AI to analyse Big Data in
the education industry in India. It analyses data from
600,000 schools and 70,000 plus coaching centres to
provide top quality results for Indian students. This
enables them to be a one-stop shop for all things
education-based in India. Students can rely on one
platform. A few Companies that use AI in education
are given in [17]. GetSmarter [19] has also listed a few
educational applications driven by AI as well as
Companies developing such technologies. Some of
them are: 1. Nuance, Burlington, Massachusetts; 2.
Cognii, Boston, Massachusetts; 3. Quilet, San
Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3429541
Francisco, California;4.Thinkster Math, Kendall Park,
New Jersey; 5.Knewton, NYC; 6. Blippar, London,
England; 7. Century Tech, London, England; 8. Brainly;
9. Content Technologies, Inc.;
10. MATHiaU; 11. Netex Learning.
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The present study has revealed that in order
to promote NEP, the HRD Ministry has to seriously
consider the use of AI for educational purposes. Indeed,
AI can be integrated with other emerging technologies
like Machine Learning (ML), Virtual Reality (VR),
Augmented Reality (AR), etc. for best results. The
application of these technologies has resulted in
innovations that are changing our lives in every possible
way. This paper has placed emphasis on AI for
modernizing education right from school level to
doctoral programs. AI, in particular, has gathered a lot
of focus as this technology has a huge potential to
transform our everyday lives. Many countries including
India, are still following traditional teaching methods.
With the adoption of educational methods that use
educational technologies, the learning processes can be
improved and modernized. Integrating AI in the
education system can improve the teaching- learning
process. AI will help in keeping track of students’
performance. Keeping manual records of students and
their performance is not only time- consuming and
tedious but needs regular maintenance
as well. With the help of AI learning analytics, educators
will have a better opportunity to analyze the data in-
depth to provide requisite suggestions and guidance to
students as well as their parents or guardians. This
approach can radically help the educators to identify
certain areas wherein their students are struggling and
lagging behind. They can prepare a suitable study plan
accordingly. Teachers can also use customized ERP
software solutions for easy record details. The AI will be
helpful for the teachers in finding and filling gaps in
their teaching methods or schedules. The Indian schools
and colleges need not resort to the traditional one-size-
fits-all pattern of education. In this information age, it is
not an ideal method of teaching since every student is
unique, comes from different backgrounds and has a
different pace of learning. In that sense, AI can help
educators prioritize and customize learning as per each
individual’s need. They can use intelligent
algorithms to determine the areas where they need to
focus more to enhance teaching.
AI will facilitate creation of personalized learning
material as per the needs of students. Textbooks and
other pre-defined learning materials are usually printed
in standard patterns. On the other hand, AI is going
beyond the traditional boundaries by customizing
learning materials as per the precise learning needs
of a student and
International Conference on Recent Trends in Computing, Communication and Networking Technologies
(ICRTCCNT’19), Kings Engineering College, October 18-19, 2019, Chennai, Tamilnadu, India.
course. With the help of AI, custom textbooks and
study materials can be created for different student
groups, by evaluating the course, syllabus, etc. AI
will make learning fun, interesting and insightful,
esp. for the rural students, whose family members
do not have exposure to higher education. For such
students, our traditional education system is less
engaging. AI can contribute to making learning
sessions more interactive by enabling e-learning.
Integration of AI with other technologies can help
students learn better and deeper by sparking
curiosity. Many school mobile apps work with such
motives. Further, AI will help in easy and
computerised grading process. Educators spend a
lot of time and efforts in this process. In a country
like India, where the government-run schools are
under-staffed, AI will leave teachers with more
quality time to interact with the students.
V. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
Despite the innumerable advantages of AI, it
can not totally replace the teachers in a class room,
who would continue to provide a human-touch with
the student community. However, AI can be
utilized as an effective assistant by educators to
make teaching-learning process easier and better.
As more and more educational institutions integrate
this advanced technology into their instructional
processes, the future of AI for education looks
brighter. Clearly, for best results, AI needs to be
used in conjunction with the teachers as well as
other educational technologies like ML, VR, etc.
for optimum benefits for the students. Further, good
networks as well as continuous and reliable
connectivity need to be provided even in remote
areas of the country, if AI has to be successfully
incorporated as a part of the NEP initiative of the
HRD Ministry in every nook and corner of India.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
AI can be effectively used in conjunction
with other educational technologies such as ML,
VR, AR, etc. for improving quality of education
envisaged in the proposed NEP-2019 of HRD
Ministry. These technologies are appropriate for all
levels of education from kindergarten to Ph.D.
Programs and foster greater versatility for students
in the choice and learning of courses as well as
transfer or switchover to different degree programs.
This Paper has investigated the impact of AI on the
proposed NEP of the HRD Ministry and presented
a road-map for the implementation of the same in
conjunction with other educational technologies, in
a phased manner across varied schools and higher
education institutes of India.
Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3429541
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