Ep 018 - Preparing Indian Schools for an AI World | Tristha Ramamurthy
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AI is entering classrooms faster than most education systems can adapt.
But if AI can answer almost any question instantly, what should schools actually teach?
In this episode of Chai & Chips, I sit down with Dr. Tristha Ramamurthy, educator, institution builder and Founder of Ekya Schools, to explore a bigger question:
What must be true for Indian schools to prepare children for an AI world?
We discuss how AI could change the role of schools, teachers and assessment—and whether education needs to move from simply transmitting knowledge to developing the ability to think, create, solve problems and work with others.
We also explore some uniquely Indian questions: Can AI help close the education gap or widen it? How do you rethink a system with millions of students and teachers? And what happens when children become AI-native while the adults educating them are still adapting?
In this conversation:
- Why AI may force us to rethink what school is for
- Why access to answers is not the same as learning
- How AI changes assessment and homework
- Whether the teacher becomes more important in an AI world
- The importance of teacher development
- Personalised learning at scale
- How Indian schools can use AI without widening inequality
- What children should learn when knowledge becomes abundant
- What the school of the future could look like
One of Tristha's most interesting observations:
“School is going to be about the more human stuff… how to be more human in this AI world.”
And one question that sits at the heart of the episode:
If AI can answer almost anything, what should a school still spend its time teaching?
Chapters
0:00 Introduction: what must be true for schools in the AI age
2:41 How schools' purpose is being reimagined
5:40 The future of school: being more human in an AI world
8:55 The AI-in-curriculum challenge, and the Young Founders experiment
13:25 "You teach how you were taught": why teacher mindsets must change
15:50 Answers vs. learning, and the "homework apocalypse"
20:24 Skills over knowledge: what we should actually teach kids
23:22 Where AI leaves teachers
31:47 Lightning Round
35:12 AI across India's three school tiers: access, equity & risks
42:08 Redesigning school from the ground up
46:57 India Vision: education for the next 10–15 years
Resources:
Find Tristha on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tristha/
Find Prakash on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prakash-mallya/
Find Prakash on X: https://x.com/PrakashMallya
Find Prakash on Substack: https://www.prakashmallya.com/s/chai-and-chips-podcast
Find Prakash on Medium: https://medium.com/@pmallya2411