Goa Board for Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Chairman, Mr.Bhagirath Shetye : It takes HUMINT to effectively roll out AI.

Neither the Master is ready, nor the Pupil is ready; AI for Class 9th Students, only for "Optics" in Goa.

Goa Board for Secondary and Higher Secondary has decided to include AI as an optional subject from the current academic year that begins from Monday, 5th of June 2023.

While the move is indeed laudatory and commendable, but by all means it seems another halfhearted announcement for the sole purpose of "Optics" rather than anything else.

It has been mentioned that there are 500 schools in Goa, that has Computer Lab and facility; out of which 50 Schools would be selected, and each school would have 10 students enrolled in the new AI curriculum.

On what basis, these 50 Schools would be selected, there is no idea, so far it seems. Since, only 10 students per school a max would be enrolled in the curriculum, the school computation infrastructure, being a criteria, has to be ruled out.

For 10 selected students, even a computer lab with 5 Computers, are good enough to impart the introductory AI curriculum.

The 50 Schools which would be selected; has their Computing Teachers,undergone a refresher training/course for the Machine Learning, Computer Vision and Neutral Networks & Deep Learning in very recent past or not, has also not been mentioned.

Just providing a Textbook of AI, for Teachers to recite, would serve no purpose; unless they also have some hands-on training on the current methodologies being used. By all means, it seems it has not been done, else going by Goa Government's myriad announcements, this would have been tom-tommed, long while back.

Most important thing is the proficiency and aptitude of the Computing Teachers, of the selected school itself; because unless they have that, they would not be able to spark an interest and ignite a passion among young minds for ML and Computer Vision.

The thing to note is that, all these teachers are still teaching ancient programming languages like "C Programming Language" to Class 11th and Class 12th students of Computer Science, which has no relations whatsoever with Machine Learning and Neural Networks.While C++ programming language which evolved from C is definitely used in ML and Deep Learning, it's at a very advanced stage, and there are very few practitioners comparatively to that of Python programming language.

Whether the selected teachers are themselves familiar and proficient with Python programming language, is a big question mark, but could be answered very easily.

NO.

The reason is that, they are teaching ancient languages like C, which in the common real world of computing and general world has no practical application.

C is a low level programming language.

Low-level programming languages are typically used in situations where direct hardware access and fine-grained control are required, such as in operating system development, embedded systems programming, device drivers, and performance-critical applications.

Teaching C in today's era where Python and JavaScript rules (Java is evergreen), is a plain mockery of a Computer Science curriculum of 11th and 12th standard.

Python which is the most popular programming language in the world now, is not only widely used in diverse applications, of common day-to-day world; it is much easier to understand and learn for a novice.

Now let us come to the question, that how the students would be selected?

Because for the bragging right, everyone would like to apply, and put themselves as a student of AI, while still in school. Impresses the whole neighbourhood, for sure, including the relatives.

The thing is that, all these students have no clue about programming or computation; and the only computing device that they have ever used in their life so far is the smartphone for watching Tik-Tok an YouTube videos or to play games.

If they would have been introduced earlier to computation and programming through world-class course like Scratch, a year in advance, they would have been in a much better position to appreciate the so called AI curriculum.Also, how these students would have fared in their Scratch assignments, would have been a very able "selection criteria" for the AI curriculum.

But alas, No!

So what we can comprehend from all this is that, neither the Master is ready; nor the pupil is ready for the rolled out AI curriculum; but it would be rolled out, for optics.

What purpose such a haphazard exercise could serve, is not beyond common imagination. Very important thing to know is that, it takes "Human Intelligence" to roll out and implement an effective "Artificial Intelligence" course. That's why while most of the school and colleges have a comparative curriculum, but they do not stand out, nor are producing good products (learnt student).