Policing the use of AI in the classroom

Sir, – Professional educators up and down the country are pointing out the obvious to policy makers (“Will teachers be able to stop cheating for new Leaving Cert coursework?”, Education, April 22nd).

The proposed reforms to the Leaving Certificate exam format have been overtaken by technological events. Artificial intelligence software mimicking human activity is freely available to students as exam candidates.

Teachers are emphatically telling us that covert and ubiquitous cheating in the classroom-based portion of the new Leaving Cert exam format will be impossible for them to prevent or police. We should pay attention. These reforms are obviously flawed and require some revision.

We don’t allow students to mark their own examination papers and there are good reasons for that. Similarly, we don’t allow counterfeit bank notes to circulate to preserve the value of our currency. At present the Leaving Certificate has a currency. It’s a coin you can carry with you anywhere – as long as it isn’t the product of algorithms and code or copied from ChatGPT. – Yours, etc,