In recent times, AI has been making inroads into learning and teaching methodologies that are resulting in automating repetitive tasks and personalising learning. The advent of agentic AI has the potential to herald the next frontier in education that could redefine how learning and teaching take place. This new paradigm goes beyond automation, enabling the education system to be embedded with the capabilities of real time autonomous decision making that agentic AI tools possess.
Agentic AI tools are capable of reasoning and being responsive to the environment in real time, they could become true knowledge companions for both the teachers as well as the learners enhancing the learning effectiveness. It is possible to analyse real time performance of students, identify knowledge gaps and suggest learning pathways that suit the individual learning styles. Thus teaching support could no longer be providing only passive assistance to learners, it could take on the role of an active problem solving agent.
Learners can benefit greatly with the agentic AI acting as their digital mentors or career coaches providing explanations, suggesting resources and encouraging further learning based on individual interests. Professionals could benefit with agentic AI tools that could track job trends and identify skill gaps in real time and suggest learning goals along with customised learning pathways.
Agentic AI addresses one of the significant requirements of society globally: to make learning inclusive and provide easy access to learning to all. With hybrid learning having become more prevalent, it could also act as an effective virtual bridge between classroom and online learning creating a seamless learning environment. Combining agentic AI with augmented reality and virtual reality would create rich immersive learning experiences that would enhance student engagements.
While agentic AI presents significant possibilities to transform the learning-teaching process, there are several challenges that have to be recognised and addressed in order to take advantage of the advances taking place with this technology. Firstly, it is important to provide the required exposure and training to the teachers and education administrators and equip them with the right skills to use the advancing technologies in the context of education.
Overcoming the hesitation to adapt to the new methods in education could also be a show stopper. Cost of development and implementation of the agentic AI systems are huge and governments would have to step in to make the required investments to build and deploy the systems.
Customising learning pathways based on individual learner’s profile and preferences would involve accessing the personal information. Safeguards for data privacy, security and ethical use of AI are yet to mature and implemented with the concurrence of all stakeholders. For a country like India with the requirement to educate and skill a huge population, investments in agentic AI made thoughtfully and purposefully could revolutionise our teaching-learning system.
