At Northoaks Primary School, Ms Thuhaila Sainy – a teacher with the Ministry of Education (MOE) for 28 years – no longer finds marking as daunting a task as before.

Previously, marking open-ended comprehension exercises required her to manually examine every student’s response. She would have to assess both the accuracy of the answer and the depth of understanding demonstrated before crafting individualised feedback.

“Students could arrive at the same answer in different ways,” she explained. “For instance, a true-or-false question that requires justification might see a child select the correct option but provide an incorrect reason. Understanding and addressing such responses required careful analysis of each response to provide guidance that would help students improve.”

A data assistant tool on Singapore Student Learning Space (SLS) – MOE’s digital platform for teaching and learning – now supports teachers’ work in this regard. By analysing and summarising student responses, the tool helps Ms Thuhaila quickly identify patterns in student reasoning and common misconceptions across the class. This allows her to focus on crafting targeted feedback rather than spending extensive time on the initial analysis of each response.

As the school’s head of department for Information and Communications Technology, Ms Thuhaila champions the use of educational technology in the classroom.

She shared the benefits of e-learning in episode 12 of GovTech Decoded, a vodcast series by the Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech Singapore). In this series, experts from the agency and public service simplify complex tech jargon into accessible insights and showcase how Singapore is leveraging tech for public good.

Episode 12, titled Transforming Education with Tech, delves into how digital platforms and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered tools are reshaping the way teachers teach and students learn, with insights from Mr Harish Ravindrababu, product lead for SLS at GovTech; Ms Lee Lin Yee, divisional director for MOE’s Educational Technology division; and Ms Thuhaila.

Together, they discussed how technology, when used purposefully, can enhance learning while keeping education human-centred. When digital tools alleviate educators’ workloads, teachers can redirect their time and effort to higher-value tasks, such as nurturing and mentoring students.

TECH IN ACTION: SLS & AI-POWERED TOOLS

Besides automating teaching and learning tasks like marking and providing feedback, SLS makes lesson planning more efficient, shared Ms Thuhaila.

“Teachers just need to upload a lesson module or the scheme of work to SLS’ Authoring Copilot, and it will help to generate content. I also use SLS to design module-based learning experiences that students can access to revisit what they’ve learned in class. SLS has transformed how students learn in this digital age,” she said.

Created to provide equitable access to quality learning materials for all students, SLS was designed specifically for the local context, shared Mr Harish. He is currently working with MOE’s Professional Wing to develop a prototype tool for junior college (JC) students who struggle with economics concepts.

Instead of waiting to consult a teacher or relying on external AI platforms that may provide irrelevant answers, students can pose their questions to an SLS chatbot.

“The students like it,” said Mr Harish. “They’re able to trust the chatbot’s responses because we built it in consultation with JC teachers, so it’s aligned with the MOE economics curriculum.”

The impact of digital tools can be felt in other ways. According to Ms Lee, SLS’ feedback assistants can save each teacher more than 30 hours a year. “The teachers can do higher-value work, such as getting to know their students better,” she explained.

Ms Thuhaila agreed. She values the time made available through the help of technology. Instead of spending extended periods writing detailed feedback on students’ compositions, she now uses the tool’s suggestions to guide improvements in their writing – allowing her to focus on one-to-one support for those who need it most.

Clockwise from top left: Ms Lee Lin Yee, divisional director for MOE’s Educational Technology division; Ms Thuhaila; Mr Harish Ravindrababu, product lead for SLS at GovTech; and Ms Adriana Chan, host of GovTech Decoded. Photo: GovTech Singapore

THE ROLE AND LIMITS OF AI: GUARDRAILS AND HUMAN TOUCH

In schools, AI’s role is to aid and assist, not to supplant the impact of teachers or students’ efforts in learning. A purposeful, balanced approach – with teachers supervising first-time interactions in classrooms – also ensures that young learners do not become overly reliant on digital tools like AI.

For example, SLS’ Learning Assistant uses AI to help students grasp concepts through iterative questioning. Usage is time-limited and students can ask only a set number of questions. The Learning Assistant also does not provide direct answers, even when prompted. Instead, it asks probing questions designed to stimulate the thinking process needed to complete the task.

If students go off-topic – for example, by chatting or bantering with AI – the Learning Assistant redirects them to the task. Mr Harish said the team worked with GovTech Singapore’s products like Sentinel and Litmus to ensure that the tool has robust safety guardrails and that its responses align with MOE’s pedagogy and curriculum.

Singapore SLS’s Learning Assistant uses AI to help students. If students go off-topic, it redirects them to the task at hand. Screenshot: AI in Education Office

Ultimately, however, the most effective enablers of responsible AI use are teachers themselves.

Ms Thuhaila balances non-tech teaching methods with digital tools and often emphasises the importance of having in-person conversations with her students. “AI can surface patterns or suggest next steps, but it cannot read a child’s hesitation, confusion or confidence,” she said. “Teachers interpret these cues and decide when to probe further, when to reassure and when to stretch a student’s thinking.”

TECH IS A TOOL TO ENRICH, NOT REPLACE

When AI is deployed responsibly and with pedagogical intent, educators and students can benefit from meaningful teaching and learning in the digital age.

By providing human mentorship and guidance, teachers ensure that learning remains a social process that takes place within the school community. As students strengthen their understanding through individualised e-learning, they too must develop the critical thinking skills needed to ascertain the validity of content generated or augmented by digital tools.

Deploying digital technologies with care in classrooms enables both educators and learners to thrive. Photo: Ministry of Education, Singapore

Added Ms Lee: “It is impossible for us to shield our children from AI and technology. But we must guard that space where our children can still interact tech-free, whether in schools or at home.”