Artificial intelligence is being used to assess school students’ English skills

Exam bots are marking students’ work in less than a minute compared with a typical 30 minutes by teachers: how Australian schools are using artificial intelligence.

Teachers are now using AI to mark assessments. South Australia has pioneered the use of AI tech in public schools. Picture: iStock

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Exam bots are marking students’ work in less than a minute, taking over the 30-minute assessment task of human teachers.

In the first government-sanctioned use of artificial intelligence in student assessment, South Australia is using AI tools to assess children’s English proficiency.

The task – gauging the literacy levels of migrant students – usually takes teachers half an hour, but the AI app does the job in 52 seconds.

Last year teachers manually assessed writing samples of 31,434 students, meaning the app will save some 15,000 hours of manpower.

South Australia has pioneered the use of AI tech in public schools, and was the first to introduce an education chatbot that has since been extended to schools in the biggest schooling system of NSW.

Blair Boyer, the South Australian Education Minister, said the app will save teachers time so they can focus on students’ learning.

“The Malinauskas government has led the way nationally and internationally in the space of international intelligence, seeing this as an opportunity to support both student learning, and reduced teacher workload,’’ he said.

“We made a brave decision back in 2022 when other states and territories were banning AI, not to bury our heads in the sand.

“We developed our own chatbot with Microsoft and piloted a trial across a number of schools.

“Those three years of work have paid off and we recently announced that Ed Chat would be available to all public school teachers, bringing with it some genuine opportunities to reduce teacher workload.’’

The app will be introduced as part of the SA Education Department’s EdChat chatbot, developed by Microsoft with guardrails to protect young users and filters that prevent them accessing information that is not part of the school curriculum.

Teachers will be trained to use the app, which has been trialled extensively to ensure its reliability and consistency of results.

Adelaide Botanic High School teacher Rebecca Weber, who was an early adopter of EdChat, said the app takes less than a minute to determine a student’s level in the LEAP (Learning English: Achievement and Proficiency) test.

“This project has been an exciting opportunity to support my fellow teachers, and ultimately teachers, through harnessing this technology,’’ she said.

“My focus in using EdChat has been on exploring AI opportunities for innovation, rather than viewing AI as a replacement for teachers.’’

In South Australia, EdChat has been rolled out to all Education Department staff, as well as nearly 1000 students.

The department plans to give all high school students access to the chatbot in coming years.