Ei-iE

The Future of Work is not just making the headlines - it has become an issue of increasing importance for students, teachers and the whole of society. While there is always an element of anticipatory anxiety when facing the future there has also been real concern about the arrival of Artificial Intelligence, its potential to disrupt the labour market and changing skills requirements in the workplace more generally.

This report on EI’s survey about the Future of Work in Education lays out a clear landscape of the problems and opportunities we will face. While educational technology clearly has the potential to save teachers time doing mundane tasks and it is important to recognise that education would have ground to a complete halt during the pandemic without digital technologies connecting teacher and students, EdTech clearly, like Janus, has two faces.

It is also an extremely profitable market growing at 16% and is estimated to reach over $400 billion by 2025, according to HolonIQ1. Data and privacy are particular concerns for teachers as EdTech giants mine our clicks for profit. This is explored in some detail in this report with a particular emphasis on the need for unions to get involved in data governance.