The northern state of Uttar Pradesh in India is the country’s most populous. The state runs approximately one million schools, employing nearly ten million teachers. The Uttar Pradesh (UP) government has recently started a project to introduce an AI curriculum in schools. In partnership with the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA), the UP government is developing a curriculum for AI in early education. It is set in the framework of India’s “AI for All” initiative, which emphasises inclusion and empowerment.

Teacher training is the first step in the effort. CEMCA has identified the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Day of AI as the primary OER for developing a MOOC for teachers in the government schools of UP. Entitled ‘Introduction to AI for Foundational Stage Teachers and Students’, this self-paced MOOC has five modules and can be completed in about two .

Monica S. Garg, Additional Chief Secretary of the UP government, leads the initiative. She says, “AI in early education is an emerging subject globally. Training teachers to impart AI education is essential in enabling them to teach AI to students in kindergarten and primary schools.”

Teacher training will be followed by designing an AI curriculum for all schools in the state, covering children at all levels.

Image source: Jeremy Bishop, Unsplash