AI has the potential to “transform” education, an expert with over 40 years in the field recently told . Professor Richard Susskind said we were just a couple of years away from having “our own AI systems that will be our personal assistants, that will be our personal tutors, that will be our personal researchers, our personal physicians, our personal legal advisers”.
But sometimes grand claims about the potential of AI in education can be hard to believe when far more modest aims - such as giving all pupils a device and internet connection - continue to elude us.
That promise was made in the SNP’s 2021 Scottish Parliament election manifesto, but never delivered. Last September Tes Scotland revealed that 10 of Scotland’s 32 local authorities had policies - at various stages - to provide all or many pupils with their own device, but 22 did not.
Nine months on, the landscape is unlikely to be much different.
Schools’ unreliable internet connections
Meanwhile, national bodies such as the SQA report limping along with “an ageing digital infrastructure” that dates back to the 1990s and is no longer fit for purpose. The message coming out of many schools is similar: unreliable internet connections continue to thwart staff.
Who, therefore, is going to spearhead this AI revolution? Who is putting in place the infrastructure? And how is it going to be funded?
More likely than the system as a whole exploiting AI is that some do and some don’t, and more gaps open up: gaps between pupils who can afford their own devices (and have the knowhow to tap into the potential of the technology) and those who cannot; gaps between the councils - and the schools - where devices are provided, or not.
Ultimately, while technological change is indeed fast and furious, the same cannot be said of change in Scottish education, where the theme of the past year and more has been for it to be constantly called for, considered and debated - but seldom enacted.
The upshot is that the same items remain on the to-do list in perpetuity.
This is illustrated by Tes Scotland articles that bookended this school year. Back in August 2024, as the 2024-25 school year got under way, we were writing about the behaviour crisis. The education secretary, Jenny Gilruth, had published her behaviour “action plan” to muted enthusiasm; just last week, guidance on consequences was published to much the same lacklustre response. Both documents provoked calls for more resources, rather than carefully chosen words.
In August 2024, exam results were also making headlines; then, last month, students completed the latest batch of National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher exams with little sense significant change is in the offing, even though less of a reliance on exams and the use of a wider range of assessment methods was a key recommendation of the independent review.
The secondary teacher shortage was also an issue in August 2024 (as illustrated by our exclusive story looking at the number of probationers requested by councils, as compared with the number they received). Fast-forward to June 2025 and research by School Leaders Scotland found that over a third of schools had adjusted their curricula because they could not get certain subject specialists, from craft, design and technology teachers to maths teachers.
The financial woes of independent schools were also hitting the headlines in August 2024. Arguably, that story has moved on, although not in a way the sector will welcome. Earlier this month, independent schools lost their court battle over the introduction of VAT on fees.
A rare ‘green shoot’
In this somewhat stale and static landscape - albeit in the Scottish Parliament this week - the Curriculum Improvement Cycle, which got under way in earnest this academic year, has been described on several occasions as a rare “green shoot”.
Baked into the review process seems to be how change will happen. Unlike other reviews, the CIC isn’t just about figuring out what is wrong with Curriculum for Excellence and coming up with solutions; the assumption is that deficiencies, once identified, will then be addressed.
Some headteachers complain that the 10-year period the review will span is too long, that too many children will have to make do with a curriculum we know is far from ideal, where the knowledge that should be learned at each age and stage is ill-defined, and where teachers cover excessive amounts of content at the expense of deeper learning.
But in a stretched system where money is tight and capacity low, is iterative change over a long period perhaps the only way to make progress?
Looking ahead to the election
This kind of long-term view is unusual; the five-year electoral cycle encourages short-termism. And now, with all eyes on the 2026 Scottish Parliament election next May, the SNP government is likely to become ever more cautious as it seeks to avoid any missteps it could pay the price for at the ballot box.
This desire to avoid controversy will likely be exploited by the teaching unions when it comes to pay - but also class-contact time.
It might seem as though the promise to reduce the time teachers spend in class by 90 minutes a week is dead in the water, given it was made more than four years ago, ahead of the 2021 Scottish Parliament election.
Come August, however, the results of the consultative ballots being run by the EIS and SSTA teaching unions over industrial action will be in - and the last thing the government will want ahead of the election is striking teachers and closed schools.
One change that may yet come to fruition, then, is more preparation and planning time for teachers.
This could provide a welcome bit of extra breathing space for school staff - at least until the robots take over…
Emma Seith is senior reporter at Tes Scotland. She is
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