Indian schools are gearing up to implement the country’s national-level education policies focused on integrating artificial intelligence, robotics, and other emerging technologies into the curriculum. Among the early movers is Delhi Public School (DPS) Indirapuram in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, which has set up an AI and Robotics Lab comprising humanoid robots, drones, Python and Arduino robotic kits, a robotic arm, and more. The lab was inaugurated on Wednesday, April 23, by Aman Gupta, the co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of boAt Lifestyle. The Shark Tank India judge is also an alumnus of DPS RK Puram in Delhi. He was joined by DPS Indirapuram school board members Abhishek Bansal and Girish Kumar Sachdev as well as Principal Priya Elizabeth John at the inauguration. “Through this pioneering lab, DPS Indirapuram aims to empower students with practical knowledge and hands-on experience in AI and robotics. From learning foundational concepts to mastering coding and developing fully functional robots, students will be exposed to an enriching, skill-based learning environment that prepares them for the challenges and opportunities of tomorrow,” the school said in a press release. Girish Sachdev, a member of the school’s board of management, said that the institution tied up with several companies from the US, Dubai, and China in order to set up the lab. Beyond importing equipment from these companies, he noted that the school has brought in specialised trainers and instructors from countries such as Jordan to bridge the curriculum gap between schools abroad and in India. DPS Indirapuram students will learn how to use AI from basic to industrial levels, he said. “This is not a paid initiative. As per CBSE [Central Board of Secondary Education], AI is a mandatory subject for students from grades 6-10 while grade 11 and 12 students can choose to take it as a voluntary subject as per their requirement. There is a huge amount of cost that has been invested in the lab but we don’t believe in charging extra fees for it. We are basically delivering it for the betterment of the students,” Sachdev said. On the efforts involved in upskilling teachers to educate students on AI and robotics, Sachdev said, “It took us six to eight months to conceptualise this project, we also took a survey of various organisations across the world, and we have researched the equipment. After that, we realised that there were organisations that were going to help us if we collaborated with them in a certain way. As a result of such collaborations, we got trainers from Jordan.” “These trainers will train teachers for every module, and the training schedules are throughout the year. We have hired them on a project basis. Apart from that, there are certain trainers who will be with us on a long run and be a part of the lab. The major aim is to provide and let students utilise the equipment on an international level and take them to international competitions around AI so that they get the exposure,” he added. The trainers that are part of the AI lab will also evaluate learning outcomes among students. “We’ve always evolved ourselves to give children nothing but the best. Our teachers have been undergoing AI training as well and to a great extent, they’ve mastered it. Of course, AI as such is an evolving field. What makes us feel proud is that just the virtue of inaugurating the AI lab has generated excitement among students, teachers, and parents,” Principal John said. What else does the lab contain? Computers with Nvidia Jetson support are also part of the lab. Jetson is the US-based chip giant’s computing platform for programming robots and building edge AI applications. However, the aim of the lab is to let students interact with and understand the technology behind physical robots with AI capabilities such as computer vision, deep learning, text-to-speech, etc. “The purpose of the lab is so that students have the pre-requisite knowledge to do hands-on activities. For example, Python isn’t AI. Python is something you use to do AI. And a lot of these schools get stuck teaching Python to students all the way up to grade 12. So, they don’t get to use it as a tool because they are still learning it,” Dana Alsani, an AI and robotics training manager at EdNex, told indianexpress.com. EdNex is one of the companies that DPS Indirapuram has partnered with to set up the lab. It is a Dubai-based firm that provides futuristic experiential learning and training solutions to schools as well as vocational institutions and industrial organisations, according to its official website. “We want students who reach grade 8 to already know Python so that when they use these robots, they are using them in a language that they are familiar with and more focused on doing AI while using Python,” Alsani added. When asked if the lab's humanoid robot was autonomous, Alsani said that they could be programmed to undertake certain autonomous tasks. Nearly eight lakh students in grade 11 and 12 from CBSE-affiliated schools have opted for AI courses in the academic year 2024-25, according to data provided by the Union Ministry of Education in Parliament last year.
