| Monday, 27 October 2025 |
What India is doing, will do, and should do—to not just survive but thrive in the chaos unleashed by Trump Subscribe here
Good morning [%first_name |Dear Reader%],
Schools have traditionally treated technology with a certain reverence. And distance.
For instance, computer labs of most schools in the past three decades had the same ritual. You formed a line with your classmates as you walked to the lab. You left your shoes outside in a neat row. You had a lab partner to share the computer with you. And more time was spent uncovering the computer than figuring out how to use it.
Arjun Rao remembers those days. He’s now the principal of the 63-year-old Bombay International School, but once he too stood barefoot in that lab line. “I wish the teachers then had the insight to tell me how life-changing technology would be,” he said.
That’s the thing. Technology is no longer a curiosity. In a world where trade wars, tariffs, and Trump-induced chaos can shake India’s economy overnight, classrooms can’t afford to keep innovation behind a velvet rope. Thriving means adapting. Tech (read: AI) isn’t optional anymore.
But things are changing fast. AI is asking permission to enter classrooms. Deals are being made left and right to dabble with AI in education. For instance, the education ministry has entered into a partnership with OpenAI to distribute free ChatGPT licences to government schools. States are forming their own deals. Both CBSE and ICSE are introducing AI in their curricula.
Rao knows there’s no keeping this outside the gate. AI is ubiquitous, he said, and unavoidable.
After the OpenAI partnership was announced in August, The Ken reported on it and asked readers what they thought about large language models like ChatGPT in Indian schools. As many as 1,500 responses from over 300 subscribers came in. The results were strikingly optimistic.
About 42% said that ChatGPT is the future of learning. Over 45% of respondents said it should be used as a supplementary tool in learning, and nearly 38% thought it should be a core part of assessments to help teachers grade students. Only 0.7% believe that this will be a passing fad.
Rao is in broad agreement with the readers. But there’s still hesitation—not out of reverence, this time, but fear.
Because education is as much about learning how to think as it is about digesting information.
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