Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

What the witnesses have been saying over the past while is so fascinating. I am a member of the Oireachtas Committee on Education and Youth. I am not a member of this committee but I was interested to see what was happening here today because the Committee on Education and Youth has been talking for quite a long time about leaving certificate reforms. That is the end-of-school examination process. There is real fear about the use of AI and not being able to certify it and say that students have not generated their whole project through AI, and there is a real lack of trust. What I am hearing today is that there is a significant amount of trust in the Estonian education system. As Senator Scahill said, the Committee on Education and Youth went to Finland. There is trust among educators, students and the department in Finland about what is going on in schools, so it is quite inspiring to hear that echoed from the witnesses' country. I thank the ambassador for being here.

The examination process in Estonia is different from what it is here. There are three examinations at the end. Estonia is using this platform it has developed through the private-public model, which is excellent because it means things move on because it has the know-how. Is there any positive impact through the use of AI?

I see that the two out of three teachers have adapted homework. I am not a big fan of homework because I think children and young people spend a long time in school and need to do other things in the afternoon and evenings. How did that actually look, because if we are adapting homework, I would love for it to be adapted so that we have less of it and use time more efficiently?

I see that AI Leap is planning to scale into primary school. I am particularly interested in how that would work because young people are already using AI. We can pretend they are not using it but what we need to do is harness the ability to use it as a learning tool. What AI Leap has built is something that seems very safe from what the witnesses are describing. I would love to actually see what it looks like and so I wonder how that will look. I am very interested in the universities and scientists and how they are carrying out the impact studies. Like Deputy Gibney, I am also interested in the ethics of that and how those reports are going.