Technology in education has long followed a familiar pattern: excitement about a new tool, followed by disappointment when it fails to live up to its promise. Generative AI, unleashed on the world with the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, felt different, and for many education systems, it still does. But as ministries of education in low- and middle-income countries move from curiosity to planning, one question has risen to the top: How much does it cost? A new paper, Costing AI Use in Education in Low- and Middle-Income Countries, explores and unpacks this question.
Historically, estimating costs associated with uses of new technologies in education has been difficult and complex for policymakers and planners. Budgeting for ‘edtech’ has often focused mainly on visible, upfront capital expenditures while ignoring much larger, ongoing total costs of ownership and operation. Edtech + AI introduces new challenges for education planners, especially in countries that face severe resource constraints. To plan effectively for the future of digital education in an age of AI, education systems will benefit from understanding how related business models and technologies are evolving.
The edtech sector has transitioned through three distinct but overlapping paradigms:
- Initially, procurement focused on one-off purchases of hardware and software.
- Over time, the introduction of subscription models for software and education content (and, in some places, including leased hardware as part of bundled services) resulted in an evolution away from what were largely capital expenditures to increasingly include various types of recurrent operating expenditures.
- Now, a new phase is emerging, introducing new, variable costs related to the use of generative AI models.
This evolution disrupts traditional cost considerations related to edtech, altering some of the defining questions a ministry must ask and introducing new fiscal vulnerabilities.
