Education in the age of AI
Nearly every university student now uses AI in assessed work, and schoolchildren use it every day. The curriculum meant to teach them about it does not reach classrooms until 2028. The exam system, built on coursework a teacher must vouch for, has no fix arriving before 2030. The technology sprinted. The institutions are strolling.
The gaps below are mostly missing plumbing rather than missing ideas. No one certifies the AI tools schools buy. No fund retrains the teachers or redesigns the exams. Workers displaced in mid-career are offered loans, not grants. Each entry names what could be built and who is best placed to build it.
Full landscape notes (July 2026)
England enters mid-2026 mid-reform. The Curriculum and Assessment Review (Francis) reported November 2025; the government response promises a revised curriculum by spring 2027, first teaching September 2028, embedding AI awareness and digital/media literacy and replacing the computer science GCSE, leaving a three-year window in which pupils use AI daily with no curriculum coverage. DfE has moved fast on supply: Oak's Aila lesson assistant (NFER trial reports autumn 2026), the AI Content Store built with Faculty AI, £23m EdTech Testbeds, an AI tutoring programme targeting 450,000 disadvantaged pupils by end-2027, and voluntary generative-AI product safety expectations. Assessment is the pressure point: JCQ relies on teachers authenticating coursework, Ofqual's on-screen exams arrive ~2030 for small subjects only, and in HE 94% of students use generative AI in assessed work (HEPI 2026) while nearly half of providers run deficits and 12,000+ jobs were cut in 2025. Teacher supply remains short (secondary ITT forecast 14% below target for 2026/27), making AI workload tools strategically important but largely unevaluated. The skills system is mid-transition: Skills England now publishes annual needs assessments; the Growth and Skills Levy replaces the apprenticeship levy from April 2026; the loans-based Lifelong Learning Entitlement launches January 2027 after repeated delays. Graduate vacancies have fallen sharply with contested AI attribution, youth unemployment is at a decade high, and no instrument exists for mid-career retraining at scale. Wales centralises school digital infrastructure through Hwb; England leaves 22,000+ schools to buy alone.
The gaps (11)
No permanent assurance body certifying AI education products for safety and efficacy
Schools are buying AI tools for children on the vendors' word alone.
No assessment-innovation sandbox or redesign fund for post-AI school qualifications
Coursework rules assume pupils screenshot their AI prompts. Exams need a rethink.
No funded national programme for AI-era assessment redesign in higher education
94% of students use AI in assessed work. Every university copes alone.
No AI-literacy CPD entitlement for the existing teacher workforce before the 2028 curriculum
The AI curriculum lands in 2028. Teacher training for it has no budget.
England has no national school digital platform for safe central provision of AI tools (no Hwb equivalent)
Wales hands every school vetted digital tools. England leaves 22,000 to shop alone.
No funded successor to the National Tutoring Programme to deliver AI-blended tutoring to disadvantaged pupils
AI tutoring for 450,000 poorer pupils is promised. The lesson money isn't.
No grant-based retraining instrument for mid-career workers displaced by AI
Mid-career and displaced by AI? The state's offer is a loan.
No statutory failure regime or transition finance for universities restructuring under AI-era demand
Universities can go bust. There is no law for what happens to their students.
No dedicated national R&D programme on AI pedagogy and child-AI interaction
No one studies what daily AI use does to a child's mind. Vendors mark their own homework.
AI-economy qualifications for 16-19 and vocational learners remain exploratory, with no delivery commitment
Ministers will 'explore' an AI qualification for sixth-formers. Four million can't wait.
No civic technological literacy infrastructure for adults
We teach adults to spot scams, not to understand the systems that govern them.
Also surfaced by this domain’s research (1)
Who is already here: key actors (15)
- Oak National Academy (arm's-length government body): Free national curriculum resources plus Aila, the DfE-funded AI lesson assistant launched Sept 2024; tens of thousands of teacher users; independent NFER trial reports autumn 2026.
- DfE AI in Education programme / AI Content Store (government body/programme): Built with Faculty AI; curriculum content pre-processed for AI developers (16 edtech firms using it), £23m EdTech Testbeds, AI tutoring tools programme targeting 450,000 disadvantaged pupils by end-2027.
- Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) (what-works centre / funder): The evidence gatekeeper for English schools; running the Aila Teacher Choices trial; its tutoring evidence (~5 months gain) underpins AI-tutoring claims, but trials take years.
- Ofqual (regulator): Consulting (Dec 2025–Mar 2026) on on-screen GCSE/A-level exams (capped at small-entry subjects, delivery ~2030); regulates exam integrity in the AI era.
- Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) (exam boards' membership body): Owns the 'AI Use in Assessments' guidance (rev. April 2025) governing coursework/NEA authentication: the front line of the schools assessment-integrity problem.
- Skills England (executive agency (DfE)): Publishes annual skills needs assessments (2026 report: 70% of workers in AI-exposed occupations), oversees Growth and Skills Levy transition from April 2026; absorbed IfATE.
- Jisc / National Centre for AI in Tertiary Education (sector digital body): Runs the national AI-in-assessment pilot (2025–26) across FE/HE with tools like Graide, KEATH, TeacherMatic; AI maturity toolkit for institutions.
- QAA (quality body (membership-based in England)): Sector guidance on generative AI and academic integrity; no longer England's designated quality body, so its advice carries no regulatory force there.
- Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) (think tank): Its annual Student Generative AI Survey (with Kortext) is the key HE dataset: 2026 edition found 94% of students use genAI in assessed work; 12% submit AI-generated text.
- National Centre for Computing Education (NCCE) (government-funded programme (STEM Learning consortium)): DfE-funded CPD for computing teachers: the obvious chassis for whole-workforce AI-literacy training, but its remit is computing, not AI across subjects.
- Raspberry Pi Foundation (charity): Experience AI (with Google DeepMind): free AI-literacy lessons and teacher training used in UK schools; voluntary adoption, patchy reach.
- BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT (professional body): Commissioned by DfE to draft the reformed computing curriculum (AI awareness from KS2, new computing GCSE); public consultation summer 2026.
- Chartered College of Teaching (professional body): Runs the DfE-funded EdTech Evidence Board pilot (~£800k, to April 2026) reviewing supplier evidence claims; co-authored DfE AI support materials for schools.
- NFER (research organisation): Teacher labour-market monitor (secondary ITT forecast 14% below target 2026/27) and independent evaluator of Aila; also forecasts AI/low-skill job losses to 2035.
- Ufi VocTech Trust (charitable funder): The main dedicated funder of technology for adult vocational learning (VocTech Activate: £900k round Jan 2026, grants £30–60k), though small relative to the retraining challenge.
Funders active or plausible here (13)
- Department for Education (Oak National Academy, AI Content Store, EdTech Testbeds £23m, EdTech Evidence Board, NCCE, tutoring tools programme)
- DSIT (TechFirst £187m: TechYouth, TechGrad, TechExpert, TechLocal; AI Opportunities Action Plan skills commitments)
- UKRI / Innovate UK / ESRC (content-store developer grants; plausible home for an AI-pedagogy research programme)
- Education Endowment Foundation (endowed what-works funder; AI edtech trials)
- Nuffield Foundation (education and welfare research, incl. teacher labour market and digital society work)
- Ufi VocTech Trust (VocTech Activate grants for adult vocational learning technology)
- Gatsby Charitable Foundation (technical education and careers benchmarks)
- Nesta (innovation foundation; early-years and education innovation portfolios)
- XTX Markets (major maths/AI education philanthropy in the UK)
- Google.org / Google DeepMind (Experience AI with Raspberry Pi Foundation)
- Sutton Trust (social mobility; tutoring and access evidence)
- Exam board charitable owners (Cambridge University Press & Assessment, AQA): assessment R&D capacity
- Mayoral combined authorities (devolved adult skills funds)
Policy notes
Policy is prolific but fragmented: DfE (schools AI guidance, content store, curriculum), DSIT (TechFirst, AI Opportunities Action Plan), Ofqual/OfS/JCQ/QAA (assessment), Skills England (levy, needs assessments). Holes: the GenAI product safety expectations are voluntary, with no register or audit; JCQ coursework guidance is unenforceable at scale; Ofqual's on-screen timeline (~2030, small subjects first) lags the integrity crisis by years; the 2028 curriculum leaves a three-year AI-literacy vacuum; the post-16 white paper strengthens OfS powers but offers no transition finance and no HE insolvency regime despite Education Committee warnings; the LLE is loans-only and scope-limited at its January 2027 launch; employer training investment fell ~9% in real terms 2019–2024 while levy flexibility tightened; and no official data series tracks AI's labour-market impact: Skills England itself flags local and occupational data gaps. Devolution (Wales's Hwb, Scotland's Glow) means England is the outlier on central digital provision.