Can schools and teachers be replaced by technology in the future?

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In schools of the future tablets might replace textbooks and social media could be at the heart of teaching (BBC,2014) although schools are currently doing the ‘future’ as we speak. 

There has been an increase in the amount of people that get home schooled and use technology for E-lessons. Home schooling has increased by 40% in the last 3 years (BBC,2018). Many foundations and parents believe they are not gaining the appropriate skills they need for the future of technology. A charity that supports home schooling with online lessons is Red Balloon, they support children out of mainstream education and give them online lessons through web cam and they have the choice of lesson they are most interested in and get to learn them through a modern technological way without a teacher. This is the most modern way of learning through digital competence. Many will argue that curriculums and teachers are not getting children ready for the future. I believe this is not beneficial for a child to learn through a webcam and through digitalisation this does not develop a child socially. A social theorist Albert Bandura (1925) suggests that children learn through observations of other behaviours, attitudes and the understanding to adapt new surroundings.  Theorist Bandura later went on to discuss that socialising explains human behaviour in a reciprocal interaction between cognitive, behavioural and environmental influences which is crucial in every child’s development.


 (image from BBC,2015)

Although in contrast to home schooling. There are predictions that technology will take over teachers all together in the class rooms. Sir Anthony Sheldon a head master in one of Britain’s most famous public schools suggests that “Teachers of the future will be intelligent machines rather than humans’’ (2017). He also believes that teachers will be there to help set up the artificial intelligence. This would cause a lot of cost implications within schools, paying for artificial intelligence and to pay a teacher to set up the artificial intelligence would be difficult. Evidently, this will come with great difficulty for schools to pay for both, some state schools are struggling to pay for pens and pencils. Nearly over 1,000 schools are turning to online fundraising websites, to fund basic supplies such as pencils and pens (Niamh McIntyre et al, 2019)


"One can only speculate what would have been the impact if all the money spent on technology had gone instead into lowering the teacher-pupil ratio" (Peter Tait,2016)

Teachers play a bigger part of a child’s development. I believe that a teacher is much more than delivering a lesson and to assess children’s development. Teachers are there to support children, to guide children through difficult times and in some circumstances to be there for a vulnerable child that is going through tough times at home.  Teachers can sometimes be the only trusted person a child can speak to. In relation to this, who is a child that is staying at home having education through the internet going to have other than a E-lesson and a parent? The child in my opinion is going to lack in social and a steady curriculum to develop holistically.


Reference’s

BBC News. (2014). Could computers replace teachers?[online] Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/technology-26722092/could-computers-replace-teachers-in-the-classroom

BBC News. (2015). Thousands more children are homeschooled. [online] Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-42624220 [Accessed 5 May 2019].
Erikson, E. H. (1993). Childhood and society. WW Norton & Company.
McIntyre, N. and Adams, R. (2019). More than 1,000 English schools turn to online donations to close funding gap. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/apr/09/cash-strapped-english-schools-turn-to-online-donations-to-close-funding-gap.

Sheldon, A. (2017). Machines will replace teachers within 10 years, leading head teacher predicts. [online] The Independent. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/intelligent-machines-replace-teachers-classroom-10-years-ai-robots-sir-anthony-sheldon-wellington-a7939931.html

Tait, P. (2016). 'The importance of great teaching on children's success'. [online] Telegraph.co.uk. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/12201014/The-importance-of-great-teaching-on-childrens-success.html