Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has stressed the need to include Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the curriculum.

At a meeting with senior officials of the Education Department and Vice-Chancellors of Universities here on Thursday, the Chief Minister told them to think of steps needed to fill the gap between our goals and achievements in the field of education in the backdrop of the changes the world is experiencing.

“From steam engines to electricity to computers we remained followers without having a say in their creation,” he said, adding that the world is now witnessing a fourth revolution in the form of AI.

Pointing out that the Vice-Chancellors play a key role in higher education, he said they should think of adopting a two-pronged strategy to move along with the emerging technologies. While adopting AI into the education system for improving teaching methods and learning skills, students should also be imparted with AI creating skills and it should become a part of the curriculum,” he said.

“We should be part of the fourth revolution, becoming its creators and not remain just its followers. If we take the right steps at the right time, we will become part of the emerging technologies. As AI grows, one section grows as its creators and another section follows it. We should become its creators,” he said.

Elaborating further, the Chief Minister said that according to the German Consulate General who has recently called on him, Germany is facing an acute scarcity of skilled human resources.

“In fact, all western countries are facing demographic imbalances. In our state and in the country, 70 per cent of the people are capable of working. Unless we train them with proper knowledge and skills, we can’t take the role of guiding the world,” he said.

Listing out the suggestions in this regard, he said there is a need to introduce several verticals in a single faculty, like asset management, financial market, risk management and security analysis in B.Com like in Western countries so that students will have several options to pursue.

Classes should be conducted in such a way that augmented reality and virtual reality should be integrated with curriculum, he said, observing that teaching methods in medical education also should be changed with the introduction of AI and Robotics while changing the syllabus in tune with emerging technologies.

The use of technology in agriculture is also playing a key role and modern methods should be imparted to our students and children, he said.

“Like in Western countries, we should also bring in practical applicability and overhaul the teaching methods, preparation of question papers and examination methods by adopting emerging technologies into our curriculum. To achieve this vision, we shall constitute a Board with world experts to make suggestions on this,” he said, adding two separate Boards should be constituted, one for primary education and one for higher education, so that we can overhaul the entire system from basic education to higher education.

“To take my thoughts and suggestions to the next level, we shall constitute working groups with four or five universities giving representation to engineering, medical and other faculties,” he added.