Teachers can use AI for lesson planning – Manickchand

…as Guyana prepares to introduce digital school

Education Minister Priya Manickchand has announced that teachers in Guyana are allowed to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to assist in lesson planning.
The move she noted comes as part of the Government’s broader strategy to incorporate AI into the education sector, ensuring that both students and teachers can benefit from modern technological advancements.
Speaking on Friday night during the Committee of Supply’s Consideration of Estimates and Expenditure for the 2025 Budget, Minister Manickchand emphasised that AI is an unavoidable part of modern life, and education systems must find responsible ways to integrate it.
She highlighted that a circular has been issued to teachers, formally allowing them to use AI for lesson planning. However, she acknowledged that AI is already being used in various educational capacities, including lesson delivery and assessment preparation.

“As you know, the world is currently discussing how to incorporate AI into life in a sensible way… We cannot escape it. You have some teenagers that I know that scorned the use of AI because they say it’s not credible and its plagiarism. Then you have some people who are expert at extracting from AI what is good,” the Minister said.
“What we have done is we have said to our teachers through a circular, that you are allowed to use AI to plan your lessons. We are aware that AI is being used in various ways to deliver lessons. Shortly… a digital school is going to come on board and to… make our children more comfortable with accents used, AI is going to be incorporated into that. Our exams department has begun to use AI to test, to prepare questions. All of these things have drawbacks. Many of them are still being studied, so Guyana is taking a cautious approach,” she elaborated.

Digital School
Minister Manickchand also revealed that AI will be an integral part of President Irfaan Ali’s upcoming Digital School initiative. The digital school, soon to be launched, aims to provide every child in Guyana with free access to quality education from nursery to Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) level, aligning with both the local curriculum and international standards such as the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC).
A key goal of the digital school is to bridge the educational gap between students in urban centres and those in remote areas. According to Minister Manickchand, the initiative will ensure that high-quality teaching is accessible to all students, regardless of their location.

“That is going to be launched very soon by His Excellency. And so that school is expected to have our children beginning with fourth and fifth formers, who are expected to have access to lessons. So, we’ll no longer see – I remember Honourable Cox speaking about equity – we’ll no longer see only who could access the fancy teacher in Georgetown getting service. We will now have this same lesson available to everybody across the country,” Manickchand added.
With the imminent launch of the Digital School and the controlled implementation of AI in education, Guyana is positioning itself at the forefront of modern educational reform in the Caribbean.
Back in October 2024, President Dr Irfaan Ali disclosed that this new digital school will be equipped with the entire curriculum including all textbooks and teaching materials. It will also have online tutors, AI to review assessments and generate development reports, online PTA meetings, and online extracurricular activity.
Moreover, it will also cater for teaching entrepreneurial real-life skills and cultural classes, as well as an electronic nursing and accounting school, remedial education in the evenings for adults, and all the current assessments for National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) and CXC.
Already, the Guyana Government has brought digital education to the local population through initiatives such as the One Guyana Digital Initiative, where more than 2,000 Guyanese are focused on front-end and back-end technology, with job placement opportunities on the completion of free training.
In addition, the Guyana Coders Initiative is targeting 150,000 Guyanese while the Guyana Coursera platform, which was launched in March 2024, now gives some 400,000 citizens free access to 6,000 courses, costing the treasury US$1.4 million annually.