Robots Will Never Replace Teachers But Can Boost Children’s Education

Robots can play an important role in educating young people, but will never completely replace teachers, suggests a new study.

In Science Robotics, scientists explain that social robots are proving effective in teaching certain subjects as restricted as vocabulary or prime numbers.

But the current technical limitations – particularly with regard to speech recognition and the capacity for social interaction – mean that their role will be essentially limited to that of assistants or tutors, at least in the near future.

The study was led by Professor of Robotics Tony Belpaeme, from the University of Plymouth and the University of Ghent, who has worked in the field of social robotics for about two decades.

He said: In recent years, scientists have started building robots for the classroom – not the robot kits used to learn technology and math, but social robots capable of teaching.

The pressures on teaching budgets and the need for more personalized teaching have led to the search for technological solutions.

In the broadest sense, social robots have the potential to be part of the educational infrastructure, just like paper, whiteboards, and tablets.

Robots can free up valuable time for teachers, allowing them to focus on what people still do best: providing a comprehensive, empathetic and rewarding educational experience.

The current study, done in collaboration with academics from Yale University and Tsukuba University, has reviewed more than 100 published articles that have shown that robots are effective in increasing results, mainly due to their physical presence.

However, Professor Tony Belpaeme also explored in detail some of the technical constraints, pointing out that speech recognition, for example, is still not robust enough to allow the robot to understand utterances uttered by young children.

He added that the inclusion of social robots in school curricula would pose significant logistical problems and could actually entail risks, as some children are considered to be too dependent on the help offered by the robots rather than simply using them when they are in trouble.

In their conclusion, the authors add: Besides the practical considerations of introducing robots into education, there are also ethical issues. How far do we want our children’s education to be delegated to machines?

Overall, learners are satisfied with their experiences, but parents and teachers are more cautious.

Despite this, robots hold great promise for teaching small subjects whose results almost match those of human tutoring.

So, although the use of robots in educational environments is limited by technical and logistical challenges at the moment, it is very likely that the classrooms of the future will include robots that will assist a human teacher.