AI Alone Will Not Save Guyana’s Students, engagement is the missing ingredient

Apr 06, 2025 Features / Columnists, News, Waterfalls Magazine

---

By Karen Abrams, MBA, AA, Doctoral Candidate

Kaieteur News-  As someone deeply engaged in researching education solutions for mostly vulnerable children of Guyana, I find myself increasingly concerned about an assumption that is gaining too much ground; that technology alone will transform our education system. Specifically, AI platforms, simply by being digital, will solve our nation’s educational challenges. But let me be clear, they will not. AI is not a panacea. Without engagement, even the smartest technology falls flat.

The truth is, many of the people developing AI solutions for education are brilliant technologists but not educators, not education researchers, and not practitioners familiar with the theories of how children learn. They often lack grounding in the rich, empirical research, built over decades, that has shown us what really helps children succeed in the classroom.

A good teacher, we know, is not just a transmitter of information. A good teacher engages. A good teacher draws students into learning, sparks curiosity, and keeps them motivated through challenges. In fact, decades of educational research have made this clear; engagement is one of the single most critical factors in improving academic outcomes (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004). When children are engaged, they learn better, retain more, and are more likely to persevere.

This is where the promise and the limitation of AI both come into sharp focus. Scaling a great teacher to every classroom, every learning pod, and every home across Guyana is logistically impossible. We simply don’t have enough master educators (or good master educators) to go around. That’s where AI can and should play a vital role, by helping to scale the personalized, responsive, and engaging experiences that good teachers provide.

But here’s the catch, not all AI solutions are created equal. In fact, many of them fail precisely because they are not engaging. They treat learning like a mechanical process,  input information, output answers, while ignoring the human factors that keep children interested and motivated.

Just because something is online or digital does not automatically make it right for students. I’ve seen platforms that boast about their adaptive algorithms, yet the lessons are dull and uninspiring. I’ve tested tools that provide real-time feedback but completely miss the mark when it comes to capturing a child’s attention or sparking their imagination. I’ve even heard it directly from the students in our own Learning Pods, who told me plainly, “Miss, this app boring.”

They were referring to the first version of our Pathway AI platform, which we had deliberately kept bare and functional in its initial design. But that honest feedback from the learners was invaluable. It pushed us to rethink and refine, leading to the much-improved version 3 of the platform that we have today. The reality is, most technology innovators do not receive this kind of direct, early feedback, they only hear it after their solutions are completed and deployed, when it’s often too late to make meaningful changes.

 

Without engagement, these AI tools become little more than expensive digital textbooks, and as we all know, even the best textbook is useless if it stays closed on the desk.

In Guyana, where children often face additional barriers like unreliable internet or shared devices at home, the challenge of keeping learners engaged becomes even greater. This makes the role of AI-powered but educator-informed design absolutely crucial. Solutions must not only deliver content but must spark curiosity, celebrate effort, and connect emotionally with learners.

My research, rooted in Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000), reinforces this point. Learners thrive when they experience autonomy, competence, and relatedness. AI can support autonomy and competence by allowing learners to progress at their own pace and providing instant feedback. But relatedness, that human connection, must be thoughtfully designed into these tools or supported through facilitators and community engagement.

So while I firmly believe in the power of AI to extend learning opportunities across Guyana, I equally believe that technology must serve pedagogy, not the other way around. The goal isn’t to replace teachers but to amplify their reach, informed by what we know truly works in education.

Our children deserve solutions that honor the science of learning. They deserve tools that do more than deliver information, they deserve experiences that ignite their curiosity, engage their minds, and encourage their growth. If we commit to designing AI solutions with these principles at the core, we can build not only a smarter future but a more just and hopeful one. Because in the end, engagement is not a luxury. It is the bridge between technology and transformation.

 

---

---