Letters to the Editor: AI guidance for schools is too little too late
School leaders and teachers already juggle countless responsibilities and now find themselves still in limbo when it comes to directing and creating policies on AI use by teachers, but especially by students. Picture: iStock
Last Tuesdayâs publication of the Department of Educationâs guidance on artificial intelligence in schools, Version 1, arrives over 18 months after it was promised by then minister for education, Norma Foley. It is a document we desperately needed then. Now, it feels like a monument to a moment that has already well and truly passed.
School leaders and teachers already juggle countless responsibilities and now find themselves still in limbo when it comes to arguably the most pressing challenge in Irish education â directing and creating policies on AI use by teachers, but especially by students.
The classroom reality is stark. Every student with a smartphone has access to AI. These tools are full of bias, hallucination, misinformation, and error. Yet most students lack the critical literacy to identify these flaws. They cannot distinguish between content that sounds authoritative and content that is actually accurate.
Those using premium versions have significantly more advanced features than those relying on free tools, creating an equity issue the guidance does not address. How do teachers assess fairly? On both of these key aspects, the document falls very short.
All teachers, especially those with project components in their subjects, were hoping for clarity on how AI use by students would be treated in assessment. That would have seemed a natural inclusion. Instead, we are told that the State Examinations Commission (SEC) will publish a consolidated document on coursework completion âshortlyâ. Teachers can be forgiven for asking: What does âshortlyâ actually mean? Could these not have been available at the start of the school year?
The guidance asks educators to consider the following key questions: âHow would AI literacy be promoted in teaching and learning?â and âHow can I help students understand the limitations of AI tools?â But it offers no frameworks, no strategies, no practical guidance.
It also fails to remove the second-guessing that will accompany any decision regarding the extent to which a student can or cannot use AI.
The document describes itself as âVersion 1â. I sincerely hope Version 2 addresses these fundamental gaps. Our students are using these tools today. For many Leaving Certificate subjects, project work has already begun. We cannot afford to wait another 18 months for answers to the questions that define our daily teaching reality.
We need to dramatically reduce our countryâs carbon footprint and recycle everything way more than we are now. We need to step up our game because, if we donât, there wonât be a future to work towards.
Do we want to live in a world where children are worrying about our worldâs problems because the adults and people in authority wonât make the necessary steps to resolve them?
Our country can be the first to take the most important steps to saving the planet.
The Earth doesnât belong to us. It is on loan to us, and it is our job to protect it for our kids, our grandkids, and our great grandkids. It isnât fair of us to mess everything up for future generations.
My name is Azura Manning. I am 12 years old, and I am trying to make a difference.
We list all our brands on our website, itâs on the packaging, and we regularly talk about the role smokeless products, like vaping, play in helping us transform our business. Far from pulling the wool over peopleâs eyes, itâs our publicly-stated ambition to become a predominantly smokeless business by 2035 and ultimately make cigarettes a thing of the past.
Mr Hogan claims that companies such as BAT have targeted teenagers. This is incorrect and cynical â BAT Ireland campaigned for the under-18s ban for several years prior to its introduction in December 2023. As part of our âVerifyâ programme, we collaborate with over 3,000 retailers throughout Ireland to prevent youth access to nicotine products, providing training to ensure staff can properly identify individuals under 18 through correct ID verification.
Where we do agree with Mr Hogan is on enforcement. We waited nine years for the under-18 ban to be introduced, and now weâd like to see it properly enforced. The incoming retail license will help clean up the market, but it too will only be effective if enforcement is vigorous. We also agree with the need to remove flavours and packaging that appeal to youth from the market. We continue to call for a ban on confectionary-, dessert-, and soft drink-flavoured vapes.
The assertion that companies such as BAT are claiming that vapes are âharmlessâ is also misleading. We are explicit in noting that vapes are not harmless, but they are 95% less harmful than cigarettes, as repeatedly highlighted by the Royal College of Physicians. Vapes are critical in helping thousands of smokers move away from cigarettes. In Ireland alone, 160,000 people have switched with the help of vapes.
Mr Hogan should be cautious to tar products such as vapes with the same feathers as cigarettes, particularly when they help thousands of people in Ireland to change their lives for the better, and we are open and ready to have a conversation about how vapes can help Ireland become smoke free. Yours, etc.
It was all so different to 2019, when MicheĂĄl Martinâs Fianna FĂĄil successfully introduced Senator Frances Blackâs OTB in the DĂĄil. In their manifesto for the 2020 election, they undertook to progress the OTB into Irish law. At that election, parties committed to the OTB gained over 100 of the 160 Dail seats, with the only opposing party, Fine Gael, winning 35 seats. Despite this overwhelming democratic mandate, the OTB was not enacted then, nor in the five years since.
It is conceivable that, with the support of other counties, the peaceful ingenuity of the OTB could have diverted the Israeli-Palestinian conflict towards political discourse. John Humeâs aphorism that even heated dialogue was progress could have sidelined those with ruthless intent. Instead, they were left to seize their moment, when oppression was total and hope was gone. Palestine in the years up 2023 was such a setting, with the Oslo Accords failed and the OTB the only alternative in sight.
In Irelandâs November 2024 election, all parties and the Irish public supported the OTB. Nevertheless, the Government pattern of evasive delay and dilution continued. It has become clear that the profound failure of our representative democracy on the OTB is something more than can be attributed to our politicians or parties. They seem to be meeting unbearable constraints somewhere. Irelandâs hugely altered, global commercial setting, with its political backdrop is suspect. (Colin Sheridan â â On Gaza, Ireland has outsourced its moralityâ October 22).
The Irish Government needs to share such pressures or constraints to which it has been subjected, with the Irish public and parliament.
Any wishful thinking that the time for OTB has passed, is unfounded. President Trumpâs plan for peace in Gaza will hopefully halt the bombing and starving of civilians. However, in this cruellest of post war and famine settings, Palestinians are uniquely vulnerable. They remain occupied by Israel, with US support. Neither accepts UN or International Court of Justice scrutiny.
To ensure their protection by humanitarian conventions and international law, Palestine needs advocates with bargaining power. To underwrite such advocacy adds urgency to the enactment of the real Occupational Territories Bill (2018).
