Rebuilding an "Inadequate" System - A Conversation with Priya Lakhani

Welcome to the Future Learning Design Podcast.

You know, students are using it to resource themselves, to find out what they don't know, and that in itself has a really significant impact on a student's agency in learning. And so it's instilling a belief in education that looks beyond the coming exam and towards a future where constant change is the new norm.

Welcome back. It's great to have you back on the podcast. It's fantastic to be able to bring you today my conversation with Priya Lakhani, OBE. Priya is the founder and CEO of Century Tech, the award-winning artificial intelligence education technology company. In 2008, Priya left her career as a barrister to launch a successful cooking sauce business, which through its charitable foundation provided millions of meals thousands of vaccinations to the underprivileged in India and Africa and funded several schools. Priya was awarded the Business Entrepreneur of the Year by the UK Chancellor in 2009 and Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2014. She was a business advisor to the UK's coalition government and was appointed to the UK government's Artificial Intelligence Council in 2019 and is a regular commentator on global news for the BBC. In 2018, Priya co-founded the Institute of for Ethical AI in Education. And in the same year, Century won a prestigious MIT Solve Education Award. Priya was named the Economic Innovator of the Year by The Spectator in 2019, and this year was awarded an honorary doctorate by Coventry University's engineering faculty and appointed honorary vice president of the Council of British International Schools. Priya is the author of the book Inadequate: The System Failing Our Teachers and Your Children. You can find all of the links in the show notes for Century, for Priya, and for the Institute for Ethical AI in Education.

Hi, Priya. Hi, how are you?

I'm good.

How are you?

Good. Yeah, good. Thank you very much for having me.

Well, thank you. It's such a wonderful opportunity to have you on the podcast and it's just a really important and timely book that you've just published, Inadequate: The System Failing Our Teachers and Your Children. And I just loved in the introduction to the book, you talk about the merchants of mediocrity, which is just a brilliant phrase. And I think really kind of sums up a lot of what is going wrong, but I would love to start just by asking you, what do you think it is about the current standardized system of schooling that is inadequately and maybe perhaps inevitably average in that way of just maintaining that kind of mediocrity that is such a problem?

So our present education system is just simply not fit for purpose. And the chief victims of this are not just the children in the schools, but the teachers teachers as well. Teachers are there serving the children and their natural passion for education, you know, why they actually signed up to teaching in the first place, is so often stifled from day one of entering the classroom. Now there is no simple and easy fix to this and it will take a long time and some really serious concerted efforts involving government, but it's not just limited to government actions. We all have to get behind this as a social movement, which is why wrote the book. The book was some rallying cry to that end. In the book, I discuss 5 main goals to bring our system up to speed, and they are that we really require a vastly slimmed-down curriculum. A smaller curriculum, if you like, will liberate teachers to focus on the knowledge and skills required to thrive in a rapidly changing and very uncertain world.

Definitely.

We need to replace the exam system. So I talk a lot in the book about how we treasure what we measure and high-stakes exam systems. And we need to replace that stressful system with lower-stakes tests that can be enabled by technology that already exists today, and that will help to provide a far greater and detailed picture of an individual rather than just summarising an individual's entire formal education with, you know, 9 or 10 numbers or letters as it used to be. Trusting teachers is absolutely critical. We need to trust them with the freedom to do what they actually joined the profession to do when they signed up to teach and nurture young minds. They signed up to inspire young people, to impart knowledge of a subject they are truly passionate about, then all of that actually needs to come across in the classroom day to day. And we need to trust them enough to give them the freedom to be able to do that, because at the moment what they go through is a highly prescriptive system, particularly in the UK. The fourth point that I make is that students and teachers are mentally healthy. They need to be mentally healthy, they need to be motivated and supported. And, you know, there is a growing conversation, thankfully, about the growing mental health crisis. While we wish there wasn't one. At least I think that stigma seems to now be detaching somewhat, and people are talking more about it. But we need to make a concerted effort to ensure that we continue to invest in ensuring that people are mentally healthy, both students and teachers alike. The last and final point is that we need to ensure that the process of teaching and learning is based on the latest advances in neuroscience, and it's augmented by advanced technologies like AI. And I know that we're going to talk a little bit more about technology later, but You know, when it comes to neuroscience, there are academics all over the world that have worked and researched, you know, how the brain learns. And obviously we all know that we're as unique as our fingerprints, but there are theories out there that can be embedded and can be core to pedagogy. And we need to ensure that our teachers and our learners benefit from that. So all of those 5 goals to bring the system up to speed have very much been focused on creating a system that's far more fit for purpose than what we currently have today.

Brilliant. Absolutely. And it's so, I mean, it's so timely and so important, but I love the focus that you take quite intentionally on the fact that it's just not working for anyone. I mean, very often we talk about the needs of the students and the children. Of course, that's the object, and that's why we, we work in this profession. And, but actually, the system's not working for the teachers either. And I think that's a really important aspect of what you're talking about, right?

Well, what I should add to that is that, you know, there are schools out there that are outstanding when they're regulated. They are receiving 'great grades' or 'great progress' added value, right? So when they're looking at the added value they provide to a student, maybe a student from an economically disadvantaged background, or a student with special needs, or a student where English is their second language, you can see that actually they are adding that value. And so there are some that might say, 'But it is working for some.' Actually, what we generally find, having worked with thousands and thousands of teachers, let alone the students directly, is that that's happening despite the system. So the problem is, is that yes, there are outstanding schools. Yes, some grades are being met, but you have to question a couple of things. Firstly, you have to question, well, what are the grades actually telling us about the student? Is that actually what we need to know? When we look at reports by some of the biggest consultancy firms in the world that have then worked with some of the biggest employers in the world, even the biggest employers in the United Kingdom, you know, are the students who are leaving formal education today leaving equipped with the right skills that they need to go and then thrive in the workplace? And the answer generally is no.

Yeah.

They're not. So even though those measures look very successful for some, the question is, well, are they really? How do we measure success is a really big question that needs to be answered. You know, what's the purpose of education? And that follow-on point is, well, for those teachers and the head teachers and the senior leadership team in schools that are very satisfied with what they're providing, well, they do deserve a pat on the back. And for those that are trying but not quite achieving, they're still trying. What we have to recognise is they're trying, as I said, despite the system, right? So they are going above and beyond to provide that holistic 360-degree wraparound type education that so many of us believe in. But the problem is the system itself isn't geared towards achieving those goals. So, you know, we must make sure that people understand that. And I think that COVID has helped in some ways, as devastating as the crisis has been, parents that have then homeschooled their children since March 2020 for so many months, those that are now, you know, hearing from their schools their child needs to be sent home in their bubble because there's been someone with COVID and they've come home. You know, the parent reactions because they now know how difficult it is. I see education, it's just, you know, you've seen the memes on social media, right? And you've seen parents just saying, oh my goodness, what am I going to do? And say there is suddenly this huge appreciation for teachers and their roles. And what we have to recognize is the system is not geared for teachers to provide that village-type pastoral care plus education plus, you know, looking after the psychological needs and being pseudo-parents, if you like. So I think there is an appreciation now, but certainly many teachers and headteachers, you know, they're running schools that do provide an awful lot, and that is something I definitely want to come across. But we're not helping them, the system's not helping them. So we, we still need systemic change in the education sector.

Yeah, absolutely. And like you say, the system is full of so many perverse incentives and you're talking about, you know, those metrics that we use, but actually, as you show in the book really clearly, that those measurements have just been inflating and inflating over the last year. So we kind of create the self-justifying picture that actually doesn't benefit the students or the teachers. It just kind of justifies itself. And you also, you know, make a very strong case that the educational attainment gap for students from different socioeconomic backgrounds, that's not been closing either. So yes, we are adding value on certain metrics, and there are phenomenal teachers doing incredible work all over the world, but there's a kind of this systemic perverse incentive to keep creating the data to justify the system as it keeps going on.

Yeah, absolutely. It's a loop. And I think, you know, the main point is, is that as long as we have measures in place that we're constantly trying to meet, we're going to then be continuing to develop that system that fits the needs of those metrics. Because, you know, in any industry, in any sector, you've got to think about your goals and then you've got to measure those goals. If you want to see how effective you're being, you want to measure them. And that's very natural and that's not necessarily a bad thing to do. But if the goals seem misaligned to the metrics, which I think is the main point, you know, I was trying to talk about this with somebody the other day. And I remember calling our head of communications, who's wonderful at Centrion, had a huge part to do with this book. And I was saying to him, you know, it feels like the entire sector's on this pathway. And we're always saying, well, how do we change part of the pathway? How do we change the road, you know, that we're following? And I said, well, it's not actually the pathway. We're just following the wrong guiding star that we're trying to get to at the end. So the guiding star itself needs to be shifted. And so what's happened here is that the goal that we want, I think actually many people are aligned about. I don't think there's too much difference. The amount of conferences, the amount of panels talking about education, and you're talking with people who are not like-minded necessarily. You know, there's no groupthink. There's, you know, there are people making points that not necessarily everyone agrees with, but the general end goal, I think people can generally say, right, we kind of know what we want for our children. And we sort of know what kind of skills they need to be equipped with. When their primary school children, for example, start looking for jobs in 2030. We know the problems that teachers face. We can see because they're talking about it all the time. And there are plenty of roundtables, plenty of groups that have got together to talk about all of these things. But it feels like when we've got a measurement system that is measuring one thing, but actually our goals are very different, then obviously you're on the wrong pathway. So, and that's really what the book tries to tackle. So this is an opportune moment where we are going to change in some ways. So let's ensure that that change is now fit for purpose, that it's following the right guiding star. It's creating the pathway towards the right goal.

Brilliant. Yeah, no, I absolutely agree. And we've definitely seen inside the black box of education as parents and, and, you know, it's, I think I totally agree, a real spotlight on it, but also Yes, we need to talk and that talk and the writing and the dialogue needs to go on. But, you know, with Century Tech, you have really then gone the next step, right? And really started taking action to do something about it. And that's what I find so exciting about what you've done with Century Tech. You saw a problem and you thought, actually, yes, we need to discuss it and collaborate to understand it, but we also need to just take action. So, I mean, the first thing I would love if you could just give a brief overview of what the Century Tech platform does for people that aren't yet aware of it, but also some examples of how do you see schools and teachers specifically really working effectively with that so that it augments their role in the classroom, so that it frees them up, liberates them somehow to become that more of that coach mentor role doing targeted interventions in the classroom rather than just struggling to keep up with meeting the needs of 30+ students in their class.

Yeah, sure. So, well, at the heart of Century Tech, one thing that I hope comes across from the book and from our conversation is that Sentry is much more than this technology platform. You know, we're a group of nearly 80 scientists, teachers, neuroscientists, psychologists that are really focused on the general issues in education that we want to solve. So it's not just about producing technology. It's the ed that comes before the tech in edtech, right? We are focused on education. There are some things that we can help with, which is this platform that I'll describe, but we want to have the difficult conversation. You know, we want to engage with everybody to make sure that there is this change and that's why we're not silent and we write books and we write blogs and, you know, we have a very, very active team because we recognize that the big problems that the people we work with, the thousands of teachers, the millions of students, is very much not just going to be solved by technology. But something that we can do by listening to them is build a platform like Sentri, which at its heart uses artificial intelligence technology, neuroscience, and learning science. And the AI technology that I talk about is a true AI. It's not just a rules-based system where where, you know, there's somebody plugging in lots of ifs and formulae, like in an Excel spreadsheet, not like a typical kind of algorithm. It's an AI that actually learns by itself in a very intelligent way. So it tracks the learning behaviors of students across the globe using the system. It's multiple languages, multiple curricula, and it optimizes the learning experience for the individual child. So if a child is struggling, it will want to plug that gap in knowledge. If a child doesn't understand a bit of physics, it will try and plug in the gap if it tends to be in maths, right? So if somebody— and we saw in a class the other day in a virtual room how a teacher was saying that they were teaching kinetic energy and actually it's the first time they realized that the student didn't understand how to calculate equations. They didn't actually need to teach kinetic energy again, which is a physics concept, it was the maths that was the issue. And so it will also try and stretch students. So it's used by schools in 64 countries across the world but they all use it in a different way to meet different needs because every child is unique, every teacher is unique, and schools are unique. And so many schools use it to personalize learning in the classroom and others outside of the classroom. And during COVID obviously, and with lockdowns, you know, we've seen lots of people use Century for home learning and independent learning. We work with schools who use it to facilitate project-based learning. So we have a lot of IB schools, for example, as well, who use the technology within their frameworks. Others who use it to monitor and track how much work each student is completing, a lot of colleges who are using it, you know, to basically be able to use the data insights to be able to figure out where interventions are necessary, particularly if they're short of staff. And as I said, many schools use it to target and plug gaps in knowledge or to stretch their most able students. So there are many ways that institutions use the technology, but in all of these, the most important part is that the teacher, the child, and the parent are equipped with detailed data insights on their students and on the child. So that really boosts the support that you can give the child overall, and it removes the hours of admin work like marking and planning, and basically freeing up teacher time. And when we talk about marking and planning, they are huge tasks, they take up a lot of time, but they're also very important. Constant formative assessment we know is important. John Hattie has done an enormous amount of work in this area to be able to demonstrate how formative assessment and feedback is important. And so what the teachers then do with that time is up to them, but we're really finding that they often use the extra time that they're saving by using this technology as an aid to them to provide students with the skills that they need to cope in the modern world. And, you know, I explore this in the book, but children in primary school today will be looking for work in the 2030s, as I said, and the knowledge and skills that they need to succeed are radically different. Right. And largely that's because of automation. So because of AI, that will have such differences in the workplace. And we're now seeing schools are trying to really focus on soft skills like learning agility. I call it learning agility in the book. It's basically the ability to learn how to learn. So constantly develop and grow in terms of knowledge, skills, abilities, and traits. You know, we won't need nations and governments to invest in retraining schemes for adults when they lose their jobs as a result of innovation and technology if everybody knew how to upskill themselves and find those resources and have agency in learning because, you know, so, so actually this investment today is absolutely critical. And so using technology frees teachers up to be able to help students, you know, cultivate those skills, but also the technology itself, because while using technology even for a short period of time every week, you know, students are using it to resource themselves, to find out what they don't know, and that in itself has a really significant impact on a student's agency and learning. And so it's instilling a belief in education that looks beyond the coming exam and towards a future where constant change is a new norm. But, you know, What I try and also be very clear about is that technology is simply, it's just a means to an end, you know, the end of allowing human teachers to do a better job teaching human children. AI, artificial intelligence, is there to enhance HI, human intelligence. And for all, you know, all the benefits of technology like Century that we've built, we have to allow the process of learning to take place at a naturally human speed. Well, children are not factory workers, right? And their developing minds have got to be treated with care and love. And that is something that only humans will be able to help enhance and offer. And so there's this big debate, right, with technology and will it replace the teacher? Will it replace even teaching assistant? And the answer is, well, we've got to embrace the power of the teacher and the human in the teacher that exists even today.

Yeah.

So what can a teacher provide? Why are we wasting so much of their time on parts of teaching and learning that frankly they don't need to be able to do when we can enhance the human in them, the bit that only they can do. There's no way technology will be able to do a teacher's job. Job. And so, you know, how Century has been developed with teachers, not only the teachers that are in the team but also all of the schools that we work with, all the colleges that we work with, higher educational institutions, the publishers that we work with. There are so many experts day to day in terms of how they deliver their roles and how they add value to students. And so we've really been developing Century with them and said, okay, you know, how can we make your life easier? So every single feature in this technology has a name to it. You know, there is a part of the platform that I call the Grundy, and that's Sir Mark Grundy. You know, he's a fantastic head, chief executive officer of Shireland Collegiate Academy Multi-Academy Trust. And Mark called one day and said, Priya, you know, we would really like this feature. And so the entire company was working on the Sir Mark Grundy feature. We've had, yeah, we had Billy Downey, who's a headteacher of Streetly Academy, got very excited about a particular part of the technology about nearly 3 years ago and said, 'I'd really like it if it did this,' and then everyone was working on the Billy Downey feature. And, you know, Sharon Bruton is another amazing leader from the north of England. She said, 'I really like it if diagnostic assessment did XYZ,' but that is the platform, that's what it does. It's about essentially listening to teachers about how to make their lives much easier and having an impact on the students.

Amazing. Definitely the sign of a good tool, isn't it? If it's extremely versatile and it can really meet the needs of a hugely diverse group of educators and learners. But also I totally, that really kind of resonates with what you were saying about just the value proposition. You know, we've got to just play to our strengths and the humans in the room are never going to be replaced because it's a fundamentally human interaction, right? Education is just fundamentally a human exchange. And, but why are we not using the tech to support and augment that to, to just take away the dross, right? Because we know data is important. And why are we asking the humans to create the data when we've got way more efficient systems to create and support ourselves with the data and allow the humans to do what they're good at? So it's, yeah, it's brilliant. And I think just that kind of leads on to that idea of personalizing learning. And I think any teacher that I've ever worked with, they've had the experience of providing a really personalized learning experience to one student that they're working with, for example, in a more of a tutor role at a certain point. And everybody knows how powerful that is and how wonderful that would be to do all the time, but then, you know, you have a class of 30+ students and I think again, as you were saying, it's not a sense of disagreement about what we want to do, it's the idea of how can we facilitate that, you know, it's quite a nerve-wracking idea to think that a teacher is going to be required to personalize learning for 30+ students in their class. So where do you see that there's kind of training and support work that needs to go on with teachers and school leaders or policymakers to perhaps remove the fear around that idea, or, you know, encourage more use of things like Century Tech to support it? Because I think we're not quite there yet in supporting it. I just wonder what your thoughts were on how we can move forward from, from where we are currently.

So schools have valid historical reasons for being skeptical of the powers of education technology. Previous innovations such as the learning management system, you know, the LMS, or the Virtual Learning Environment, the VLE, or the maths app.

Yeah.

You know, they just digitized what already happened in the classroom.

Yeah.

We went from literally handing homework in to clicking a submission button online.

Yeah.

The process of browsing through one-size-fits-all textbooks simply moved online. You know, that is just saving photocopying costs and, and it's not adding as much impact. So there was nothing truly transformative about those systems. And I think the idea of digitization was never just take what you do manually and put it online. It's like taking a shop sign and creating a website. Digital transformation is really about transforming the processes so that when you went online, you were adding actual efficiencies. You were transforming the process to make it far better and far more quality. And that's what happened in every other sector in the world. And so I don't think that in the sector there was much experience of something that was truly transformative. And, and Centri was never created as a, alright, let's build an edtech company and I'll see what we can create. It was actually the founding reason as to why Century was built actually came out of problems that we could see when I was sitting on a government advisory board in education across the board. We can see that one-size-fits-all delivery of education and this need, as you ask, teachers want to personalize education for 30+ students. How do you do it? Yeah, right. And also the biggest bugbear of every teacher, senior leader, headteacher, Secretary of State— teacher workload. We need to set our teachers free. We need to respect their time. We need to empower them. How are we going to do it? Because they are overworked, they are frantic. So how can we solve that problem? And so, you know, we could see that none of the current systems that existed at the time, so that was 5, 7 years ago, were truly actually moving the dial. And so that's why we built a system that uses this really advanced technology. It's why we're very clear about what AI is. There are companies out there that have popped AI on their website and then taken it off again, popped it on and taken it off again and adapted, you know, because actually they've realized that teachers are now aware of what AI actually means because they're coming across it and introducing these technologies to them. But yes, it is difficult. Change is really difficult and it's not as simple, you know, to just say, right, we've got this tool, so now 30,000 schools in the UK, off they go, because teachers have experienced technology before. They've experienced parts of change before that haven't necessarily gone in their favor. And so how do you get them to embrace this technology and see that it works? Well, the best way is not to force it. And for, you know, if you think about Rogers' Adoption Curve, where you've got the innovators and the pioneers who take something on first, then once they say, actually, this, this works, you get the early adopters, you know, the early majority. And they say, ah, you know, we heard it works and now let us use it. Then they also say, right, evidence is in place. Several of us have seen this and it actually does have a dramatic impact. And then sort of late majority. Come on board and say, let me try it now. And then you've always got the kickers and the screamers, I like to call them affectionately, the laggards at the end who don't want to do anything different. And, you know, they're either forced to by their SLT or they just don't. But, you know, change is very, very difficult. And the way in which it has worked really, really well at Century, and we really appreciate all the people that use Century and that are the advocates of Century, is that they just generally tell other teachers. Teachers love to share knowledge and insights. They're a very sharing profession. They don't hold things to themselves. You know, in corporate sort of typical environments, you might find that one person might not want to share their secret sauce with someone else because they're so successful. But actually, in education, what's so wonderful about teachers and the fact that they really genuinely care about the stakeholders, you know, the children and the parents and the families, is that they share knowledge about what works. And so the way Century's grown so rapidly is because teachers have talked to other teachers. Teachers trust teachers because They speak the same language. They understand challenges in the classroom. They understand what works. And that's, that's basically how it grows. And then change management is part of the process. So we have a policy at Century. We do not just give technology and say, right, off you go. We'll see you every few years. We have an entire team and most of them are teachers. And this team simply just looks after the schools and they're, you know, on the phone with them. They are having webinars with them. Obviously we used to do a lot more face-to-face. To-face training. So the success of Centrri is not how many schools are using it across the globe, how many countries, it's how many are using it effectively and have embedded it where it's having impact. And that ethos is exactly why it has grown so rapidly in the school sector, in the colleges sector, and now in higher education, is because we thoroughly believe that. We're a social enterprise, you know. The other thing with Centrri is that because it's, it's slightly easier for us— I mean, people talk about edtech evidence and impact, And we take those sorts of words very seriously because we have a large group of our team are data scientists. So when you're talking about evidence and impact, you know, you have to be very careful with a data scientist about what you mean. Because, you know, it's gotta be legit. It's gotta be legitimately worked out. And also qualitative feedback is just as important as quantitative data. So with a system like Century, because obviously it's using AI and big data to be able to track impact. Is actually something that we can do. You know, it's all very well to say, here's my impact, but actually what's really important is when you independently verify it. So UFI is an amazing charity, actually. They're an amazing trust, and I don't know if everyone's heard of UFI. They're sort of like an unsung hero, I think, in FE, where they did an independent study of Century in a sector that I think, you know, needs a lot more love than it actually receives. It's a fantastic sector, the FE sector. Yeah, there was an independent study which showed that if you use century technology, you get 10 times national progress in maths and English.

Wow.

Yeah. And that was amazing. And so when we're looking at how to change mindsets, it's evidence like that that matters.

Absolutely. Just then to pivot slightly onto, because as you were saying, teachers are becoming more aware of the role of AI in education. And obviously, you know, there are questions around that. And I know that you are a co-founder of the Institute for Ethical AI in Education along with some very wonderful and auspicious members and co-founders. And I just would love to give you the opportunity to talk about what you see partly the role of that institute is in order to survey some of these issues and just maybe talk a bit about what some of the ethical challenges might be that we do just need to be aware of as educators or as edtech entrepreneurs as we move forward, because It's going to become an increasing part of our professional lives.

Absolutely. I'm really proud of our work at the Institute for Ethical AI in Education. I co-founded it with Sir Anthony Seldon and Professor Rose Luckin, and we are very fortunate to have Lord Clement-Jones chairing the Institute. It provides a framework upon which we can reap the many benefits of AI in education while ensuring threats to privacy and security are addressed. And there are lots of conversations about artificial intelligence and, you know, what that might mean in terms of the threats and the ethical issues. I think what everyone also has to remember that data in general, data doesn't mean AI, right? Data is very basic. We also have to think about data in general in education and what needs to be done potentially in terms of regulation to ensure that we can reap the benefits and also address any concerns. And in the Institute, we are focused on AI particularly, but also data in general. And the risks are real and they include privacy, security, bias, transparency and accountability. And we've got to ensure that we don't allow AI to widen achievement or access gaps between the privileged and the disadvantaged. So accessibility is an absolutely huge issue. Obviously we have to talk about, you know, bias, algorithm bias. The recent exams debacle, obviously, and quite rightly would have created, you know, there was obviously a huge uproar about it and the trust was very much affected. Now that algorithm had nothing to do with AI. It was just a glorified formula, if you like, that could have been done in an Excel spreadsheet. But you can see that even with something, it seems quite benign when you look at it, you look at it and think, well, that's just a formula. Well, actually, the discrimination that formula then created was vast. And so when it comes to education and you're thinking about the specific implications to children, right, to students, to children under 13 years old, You have to think about the nuances. So although there are fantastic institutes out there, there are fantastic foundations. You know, you've got the Turing Institute, you've got Ada Lovelace. There are lots of them out there. I know that WEF, the World Economic Forum, are also doing a lot of work in this area that's very welcome. The United Nations are, and they're talking about AI and the ethics in general. The Institute was set up specifically to think about education because in every sector, education, health, there are those nuances that one has to consider. And so we've just basically been focusing in the Institute for the last nearly couple of years on these particular areas. And we're really pleased that the final report will be out next year. We had a fantastic 3-day summit and the guidelines and the framework have been formed really by, certainly not the 3 founders. I mean, we are helping to shape the organization of it, if you like, but actually it's been shaped by the global council and advisory board that if anyone's interested, they can read about the Institute for Ethical AI and Education. It's on the Buckingham University website. And so this council has been absolutely extraordinary in giving their time and views. And then there was a 3-day summit where anyone and everyone was welcome to join in and also offer their views. There was a working group of students because what some of these— yeah, so what some of these sectors always forget is to invite the young. They forget to invite, you know, why don't you actually take the views of the people this actually will affect?

We talk about them, not to them.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so we had a phenomenal debate debate that was very impressive and they debated the issue about ethics and AI. They put forward their views and that was absolutely fantastic. You know, you always get these views put forward by young people and children that sometimes adults don't even think of. And, you know, it's transformative to actually the end result, you know, it's significant. Century Tech, of course, is separate to the Institute.

Of course.

Yeah. And the framework, when it actually is released, the final report next year, will be released to everybody and Century will be looking at that and ensuring that its policies and practices are over and above what the Institute have recommended because essentially we want to build the gold standard and we've got the opportunity to create that gold standard so that any other AI startup or scale-up has to follow in those footsteps, if you like. So, you know, when it comes to privacy, security, bias, transparency and accountability, we really, really want to be able to lead the way. And, you know, we always have to remember that regulation and accountability and those measures always are chasing innovation.

Yeah.

And so that's why this sort of work must continue, whichever organisation is going to do it. It's very, very important that it continues.

Yeah, absolutely. Brilliant. And I mean, it's great that you can be on both sides of it in a way, you know, doing the innovation, but also informing the regulation and then kind of having a really joined up conversation then to, like you say, create a benchmark for other people to hold themselves to, which is great.

Yeah. So our input is, is, is very, it was limited in the sense that, you know, we were very much putting in there, well, look, this is how it works and this is how our system works. And, you know, there'll be other systems out there in the world, particularly in China and in the USA that work differently. Because obviously if you're going to create an institute that's global, you really do need to consider the technologies that are being advanced and used in other countries because, and the way in which they're being used and what's acceptable in some cultures and unacceptable in others. Needs to be discussed. And that's really challenging because if you create something like this with technology, you need to ensure it's global, right? Because if it's not global, it's very, very difficult actually to enforce.

Yeah. Brilliant.

Yeah.

That's great. And we'll, I'll include the link to the Institute on the show notes so people can click through to that just because it's, I mean, such an interesting and necessary kind of support to all of the amazing innovation going on as well. I'd just love to finish off by this this wonderful phrase that you use in the book, and I just think, just as a way to kind of think about how we move forward, you say, 'Remembering that the guarantee of inertia is worse than the potential of failure.' And for me, that's such a neat, pithy summary of a lot of what sometimes is the problem in education, is that there is so much inertia in the system, and there is, of course, fear of failure, because these are precious moments for children, and we don't want to be seen to be experimenting, in inverted commas, on children. But at the same time, if we don't take some risks and experiment, then we're going to just stay stuck. So you asked the question, are we too timid to experiment? So I just wanted to wrap up. Do you see some courage around that we're not too timid to experiment, or, you know, how could we even support that kind of approach and entrepreneurial mindset a bit more?

Yeah.

Well, so what's really interesting is that actually I think that the teachers in the education system are not too timid because many of them are achieving what goals they want to achieve, but it's despite the system. It's in spite of what they are, you know, the framework and the accountability system. And, and actually that's just because they go over and above, but then we have, you know, surveys where 82% of teachers want to quit in the next 3 years. And that is just unhealthy. And, you know, although we have record numbers signing up to teach after COVID because people have, they feel like they've had a taste maybe in homeschooling, they understand how important the profession is, which is fantastic, you know, to raise the profile of the profession. Actually, what we do know is when NQTs start their roles, you know, newly qualified teachers, how difficult it actually is and how much sometimes it's just such a shock, it's a complete shock. So many of them I don't think are timid to experiment, but I think it's right to say that when children's futures are at stake, we are hesitant to experiment. But actually, when we look at the 5 goals that, for example, I've talked about and that means we shouldn't have such a bloated curriculum and other areas like focusing on mental health. They're not actually that experimental. It sounds like such a radical reform, right? And it would be a radical reform. It would be so radical, wouldn't it? Okay. It is radical to say no exams, no high-stakes exams, but actually how much of an experiment is that really? If you were to do that for 2 or 3 years, I mean, I would question, I mean, I've seen far greater experiments in my lifetime than some of these that would actually, one would argue, be really significant in a positive way. In education, we know that change is very difficult and system-wide experiments have been difficult to implement, but there are organisations like EEF, the Education Endowment Foundation, that do, they do great work. The problem is, is that some tests just can't be broadly applied in terms of structural changes that affect entire sets of schools. And these pieces of work are ongoing. I know that in Department for Education there are people who are looking at change and innovation, but experimentation lies at the core of innovation. You know, so you've got to actually try things out. We have to have the courage to say, look, if we do as we've always done, we get what we've always gotten. So all of these things need to be talked about, but we need action rather than inaction. That's essentially what I, what I leave everyone with. I'll leave them all in this podcast with exactly the same, which is, you know, what are you going to do about it? If you do nothing and if you sit back and say, well, yeah, that's interesting. Onto my next thing, then who are you leaving it to? Because the responsibility actually sits on all of our shoulders. They're our children. They're our future leaders. This is our problem. And so we need to think about the goals that we want to achieve and we need to make them happen now.

Yeah. Amazing. And I, I just think we're trying to create young people that think innovatively, that create value, that experiment themselves. But how can we expect that to arise out of a system that is completely unable to experiment and change and adapt, that kind of agility that you were talking about. So, wonderful. Thank you so much. It's just a real pleasure.

Yeah, it's been great speaking to you. Thank you. Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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