WE have become fascinated by the adjective “smart”. We want smart schools, classrooms, boards, screens, tablets and applications powered by artificial intelligence (AI). Yet the question we rarely ask is whether these technologies are making our teachers and learners smarter.
This question is particularly important in Pakistan, where millions of children still struggle with basic literacy, numeracy, access to electricity, books and adequately trained teachers. Despite these challenges, we appear increasingly tempted to join the global race for classroom gadgets without assessing whether they are pedagogically necessary, affordable or beneficial. A classroom does not become intelligent merely because a screen replaces a blackboard.
UNESCO’s 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report, Technology in Education: A Tool on Whose Terms?, cautioned that robust evidence of the added value of digital technology in education remains limited. Although technology can improve learning in certain circumstances, it should serve educational objectives rather than become an objective in itself. Tablets can support individualized mathematics exercises, interactive boards can explain complex scientific processes and AI can help teachers identify learning gaps. However, technology alone does not guarantee better learning.
UNESCO also reported that distributing more than a million laptops in Peru without adequately integrating them into teaching did not improve learning outcomes. The lesson is clear: technology cannot compensate for weak pedagogy. A school equipped with expensive screens but staffed by poorly trained teachers is not necessarily smart. Children also need opportunities to read books, write, experiment, discuss ideas, play, observe nature and solve problems collaboratively.
Another concern is the impact of excessive screen exposure on children’s development. Neuroscientist Michel Desmurget, author of The Factory of Digital Idiots, has highlighted research associating excessive screen use with concerns about children’s cognitive development. The issue is not that every screen is harmful, but that prolonged use can displace conversation, physical activity, sleep, reading and real-world interaction.
Maryanne Wolf, a scholar of the reading brain, offers a complementary perspective. She argues that the brain adapts to the medium through which it reads. While digital reading can facilitate rapid information gathering, deep reading requires sustained attention, reflection, inference and analysis. Her concept of a “biliterate brain” emphasizes the need to develop children’s ability to use both print and digital media appropriately. Similarly, the OECD has identified digital distraction as a concern, with nearly one in three students reporting distraction by digital devices in class in its analysis of PISA data.
Pakistan must, therefore, reject technological determinism—the assumption that newer technology is necessarily better. Before purchasing interactive boards or distributing tablets, policymakers should identify the learning problems these investments are intended to solve. Before introducing AI into classrooms, they must ensure that children continue to think, write, imagine, question, calculate and create independently.
Our priority should be smart teachers, not smart schools. Teachers need professional training, sound pedagogical skills and the ability to use technology purposefully. A child who can operate numerous educational applications but cannot formulate an original question is not truly empowered. Likewise, a teacher who can operate an interactive board but cannot inspire curiosity is not a smart teacher.
Technology should remain a tool, not a philosophy; an assistant, not a teacher; and an instrument, not the destination. A truly smart classroom may contain advanced technology or simply a teacher, a book, a piece of paper and curious children. This is not a rejection of technology but a call for educational wisdom.
—The writer was a Principal and Teacher Educator at School Education Department Punjab.