By Jennifer Dudley-Nicholson

Artificial intelligence is entering more Australian classrooms but the technology is no longer sneaking in through a side door.

More than 100 high schools recently tested a locally made generative AI tool to deliver feedback on students’ work, and the company behind it says the technology helped to improve their answers by almost 50 per cent.

The findings come after an inquiry recommended generative AI technology be incorporated into schools as a national priority, but also warned safeguards would be needed to protect children.

Technology provider Education Perfect conducted the latest AI test, analysing the experience of 15,000 students and more than 200,000 responses over 10 weeks.

The AI tool, which is an extension of the company’s existing software, analyses students’ answers to quiz questions and rates them out of five stars.

It also provides students with tips to help them achieve a higher score, such as using specific terminology and more detailed explanations, Education Perfect co-founder Shane Smith said.

The AI feedback reduced the burden on teachers and helped students lift the quality of their answers by 47 per cent, rising from a score of 2.4 stars to 3.6 on average.

“Teachers would love to give feedback more frequently and in a more timely fashion but just because of the volume only a very small proportion of these responses were getting teacher feedback,” he said.

“We saw a real opportunity there for AI to come in and support the students.”

But the company, which developed its software in Australia and New Zealand, will not extend its AI tool to exams or assignments.

“We decided, for a number of ethical reasons around bias and accuracy, we weren’t going to attach assessments,” he said.

“We’re really focused on the learning experience.”

Hillcrest Christian College in Victoria became one of the schools to test the technology in grades seven to 12, and campus deputy head Paul Locke said the response from students and teachers had been positive.

“The students weren’t having to put their hand up (and) wait for the teacher to finish with other people,” he said.

“That instant feedback in supporting their learning was really, really helpful.”

While early concerns around the use of AI in schools had focused on students using the technology to cheat, Mr Locke said education providers needed to take a more nuanced approach and embrace the technology.

“We’re looking at how (AI) can be used for supporting learning rather than taking away from teaching,” he said.

“Using ChatGPT to write an assessment would be taking away from learning whereas we’re looking at how we can actually incorporate it.”

An inquiry into the use of generative AI in Australian education issued 25 recommendations in August, including its integration into curriculums while also introducing safeguards for its use.