AI in Education Is No Longer Optional, and Delaying Teacher Training Is a Mistake
AI should support education under the teacher’s direction, which makes practical teacher training a condition for responsible use.
This is the complete article as written by the author. An abridged version appeared in the Voice from the Field column in issue three of Agenda magazine, March 2026.
The real question is: how will we use it, and who will actually be ready?
Let us say it clearly:
A teacher does not need a new burden piled on top of an old one.
Teachers are already carrying more than they can manage: preparation, marking, follow-up, messages, different ability levels, time pressure and demands that never end.
Then, in the middle of all this, someone says: let us bring artificial intelligence into education.
The natural response for many people is: are we adding even more work?
But that question itself needs to be turned around.
If AI is misunderstood, it really will become a burden.
If it is introduced without training, it will create confusion.
If it is presented as a replacement for the teacher, it will become an educational disaster.
But when it is introduced as a supporting tool, under the teacher’s supervision and within a clear policy, it is not merely a useful addition. It has become a practical necessity.
The reality inside schools is that the biggest problem now is not a lack of effort, but the exhaustion of effort on repetitive work.
A great deal of time goes into starting lesson preparation from scratch, drafting questions, organising content, preparing assignments and writing multiple versions of the same idea.
This is exactly where AI has a role:
not to replace the teacher, but to reduce operating time, shorten the starting process and give teachers the chance to focus on work that only human experience can do: explaining, following up, providing support and carrying out genuine assessment.
A teacher is not a content courier.
The teacher is the person who understands the student, reads the room, notices hesitation, knows when to slow down, when to repeat and when to change the method.
This is precisely why any claim that AI is a replacement for the teacher is naive.
AI has no educational instinct, professional conscience or human judgement.
What it can give a teacher is a faster draft, a stronger starting point and better organisation.
We therefore need to distinguish between two things:
the technology itself and the way it is introduced.
Because in most cases the problem is not the tool. The problem is disorder.
When a tool is introduced without training, disorder follows:
content that sounds convincing but is inaccurate.
wording that contains bias no one notices.
careless handling of student data.
overreliance that weakens the teacher’s role instead of strengthening it.
assessments that measure who used a tool faster rather than who truly understood.
The issue is therefore no longer whether AI is useful.
It is whether the educational institution is ready to use it responsibly.
This brings us to the point where there is no room for niceties:
teacher training is no longer optional.
delaying it is no longer neutral.
treating it as a secondary choice is no longer acceptable.
Teachers today do not merely need to hear about the tool.
They need to know:
- How to write a clear request that produces a usable starting point.
- How to review and challenge the output instead of accepting it.
- How to detect errors.
- How to protect student privacy.
- How to design assessments that reduce cheating and depend on understanding and application.
- And how to use AI to strengthen their role rather than dissolve it.
We are not talking only about theoretical possibilities, but about a direct effect in practice.
In field testimony after practical training, one participant described clearly how she applied what she had learned to her real teaching materials. She then summed up the result in a sentence that needs no interpretation:
a task she had considered a week’s work was completed in about 10 minutes.
This is not a statistical study or a figure that can be generalised, but it is a very strong signal from practice:
when training is practical and connected to a teacher’s real work, the result is not only new understanding but a genuine leap in productivity.
AI then moves from a bright idea in a lecture to a daily tool that changes the rhythm of work inside the school.
Instead of spending time on exhausting, repetitive tasks, teachers can direct it towards what truly makes the difference: the quality of their explanations, their follow-up with students and a higher standard of learning itself.
A smart school is not one that bans AI out of fear.
Nor is it one that opens access without controls under the banner of keeping up with change.
A smart school understands that powerful technology needs a clear policy, serious training and common standards.
It is the school that says:
we will not leave every teacher to work this out alone.
we will not allow a tool with this level of influence into classrooms without a shared professional language.
we will not reduce the issue to simply trying it.
Instead, we will build understanding, competence, boundaries and accountability.
The conclusion that should appear clearly at the start of any serious discussion is this:
AI in education is not optional, but it is also not a replacement for the teacher.
It is a highly influential tool and can make a real difference to the efficiency and quality of work, provided that the teacher remains in charge and that its use is preceded by genuine training rather than a superficial introduction.
Delaying teacher training means one thing:
we are delaying the readiness of education itself.
At a time of change this rapid, delay is not caution.
It is falling behind.
By Dr Ahmed Moselhi, a specialist in technical training and AI applications in education