Artificial intelligence school inspections face resistance

A data science unit, part-owned by the UK government, has been training algorithms to rate schools, using machine learning - a form of AI. It plans to work with England education watchdog Ofsted to help prioritise inspections. "We need to move away from a data-led approach to school inspection," the union said in a statement. Lead author Michael Sanders told the BBC: "If it was put in the field, it would be used to prioritise which schools should be inspected, and we are hoping to work with Ofsted over the next 12 months to improve the algorithm and tailor it to suit that purpose." The data used to train the algorithm includes past Ofsted inspections, other data from schools and census information, all of which is publicly available. "If we chased down the findings of the algorithms and offered five things that would make your school better, that would be disingenuous," he said.

Read the full story

 Related companies

Make a complaint about National by viewing their customer service contacts.

•