WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY.... WHAT DO UK
TEACHERS THINK OF AI IN THE CLASSROOM IN 2026? A RESPONSE
TO BETT RESEARCH Comment by Dr JAMES GUPTA, CEO of Synap
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he latest Bett research shows how quickly attitudes towards AI in education are changing. Eight in ten teachers now use AI for teaching-related tasks and weekly use has doubled from 26% to 52% in just a year. We are moving beyond the point where AI can simply be treated as something that sits outside education.
As its use becomes more accepted in teaching and learning, institutions also
need to decide what that means for assessment, when AI use is appropriate, when students need to work without it and how they can confidently demonstrate the difference.
That doesn’t mean the answer is more surveillance. Trying to counter increasingly sophisticated AI with increasingly intrusive monitoring risks solving one problem by creating another. Institutions need to start with a more fundamental question: what is this exam actually designed to prove?
There will always be high-stakes assessments where students need to demonstrate foundational knowledge without external assistance. But other assessments should test whether students can analyse information, apply what they have learned and justify the decisions they make.
In those cases, access to certain online resources, or even AI, doesn’t necessarily undermine the assessment if its use is controlled and the exam has been designed around it. In fact, asking students to explain their reasoning can tell us far more about their understanding than simply marking whether they arrived at the correct answer.
Once institutions are clear about what they are testing, they can make much better decisions about security. A high-stakes exam testing unaided knowledge will require different controls from an assessment where certain resources are deliberately available. The answer isn’t blanket monitoring. It is combining appropriate measures, such as browser controls and proctoring, with clear audit trails and human review so institutions have reliable evidence when something genuinely needs investigating.
The Bett findings suggest keeping AI entirely separate from education will become increasingly difficult as adoption grows. The challenge now is to ensure assessment evolves alongside it. That means designing exams where cheating offers less advantage, applying security proportionate to the risk and giving institutions clear evidence when misconduct is suspected. If AI is changing how people teach, learn and work, assessment must evolve with it - not by watching students more closely, but by finding better ways to demonstrate what they genuinely know and can do.
Read the research here:
https://tinyurl.com/3s6rp5uy 26
www.education-today.co.uk October 2026
YOUNG PEOPLE ARE QUALIFIED ON PAPER – BUT UNDERPREPARED FOR THE MODERN WORLD OF WORK
Comment by LUKAS KAMINSKIS, CEO of Turing College
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he graduate jobs market is being squeezed from both sides. Businesses are cautious about adding headcount while costs, including higher employer National Insurance contributions and energy bills, affect profits.
At the same time, AI can increasingly perform some of the routine work that traditionally gave graduates their first step onto the career ladder. This does not mean there will be no jobs for young people, but it does mean a degree alone is becoming less of a guarantee of employment.
A fast-changing jobs market
The uncomfortable truth is that too many graduates are leaving university with academic knowledge but without the practical digital skills employers can put to use from day one. Technology is changing jobs faster than many traditional degree courses can keep pace, leaving young people qualified on paper but underprepared for the workplace they are entering. Employers increasingly need people who can use AI, interpret data and work confidently with digital tools, rather than compete with technology. These skills are becoming essential across almost every industry, not just within technology companies. Universities therefore need to place far greater emphasis on employability, practical projects and real workplace experience.
Alternative pathways
This is also why apprenticeships and other work-based routes deserve much more attention. They allow people to learn while working, develop skills an employer actually needs and finish with experience as well as a qualification. University will remain the right choice for many, but in a job market changing this quickly, we need to stop presenting a traditional three-year degree as a guaranteed route into a successful career.
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