"Our true north is human-to-human connection."
With this simple declaration, Sal Khan, the founder of Khan Academy, captured a paradox that lies at the heart of education’s digital future. As artificial intelligence becomes more powerful, its highest promise may lie not in replacing teachers, but in making them more indispensable — by allowing them to be more fully, more humanly, present.
This is not mere techno-optimism. It is a vision already being tested in American classrooms through Khan Academy’s AI-powered tutor, Khanmigo. Rather than functioning as a content dispenser, Khanmigo offers personalised academic assistance to students while easing the cognitive load on teachers. The aim is not mechanisation, but transformation: to free teachers from administrative burdens so they can focus on dialogue, mentorship, and fostering critical thinking — the real essence of meaningful learning.
But for countries like Pakistan, the immediate question is not whether such a vision is attractive, but whether it is attainable. In much of our education system — where digital infrastructure is sparse, class sizes are bloated, and the pedagogical culture remains rigid — talk of AI can seem premature, even irrelevant. Yet to dismiss the opportunity out of hand would be short-sighted.
Pakistan stands at a delicate intersection. With one of the youngest populations in the world, increasing smartphone access, and a chronically overstretched education system, the country is fertile ground for educational innovation — if not in the form of wholesale AI deployment, then certainly in adapted, context-sensitive applications. For Pakistani educators, particularly English language teachers, the utility of even modest AI tools is already within reach. Free platforms like Grammarly, Quillbot, or ChatGPT can assist in generating exercises, providing feedback, or encouraging students to explore language in dynamic ways. These tools do not demand state-of-the-art infrastructure; they demand only curiosity, a mobile device, and a willingness to experiment.
This reimagining requires not just technology, but trust — especially in the teacher’s role. There is an understandable anxiety that AI might eclipse the human educator, reducing teaching to the management of algorithms. In reality, the inverse is more likely: the teacher becomes more central, not less. AI can grade quizzes or draft outlines, but it cannot detect the flicker of confusion in a student’s eyes, respond to the sociolinguistic nuance of a local idiom, or inspire a reluctant learner through sheer presence. What AI reveals, more than anything, is the irreplaceable value of the human in the loop.
If anything, artificial intelligence serves as a mirror. It will reflect back the values we build into it. If our vision of education is mechanistic, output-obsessed, and test-driven, AI will exacerbate those tendencies. But if it is rooted in empathy, equity, and intellectual curiosity, AI can be a powerful ally — not in diminishing the teacher’s role, but in deepening it.
To realise this potential, Pakistan needs a deliberate and inclusive roadmap — one that extends beyond tokenistic pilot projects or procurement exercises. It must begin with teacher training, particularly at the pre-service level, so that tomorrow’s educators are not alienated by the tools meant to support them. It must involve the development of localised AI models that respect linguistic diversity and curricular relevance. And it must be guided by a pedagogy that sees AI not as a shortcut, but as scaffolding — a means to amplify rather than dilute the student-teacher relationship.
Technology, after all, is not destiny. It is intent, amplified. The internet made knowledge abundant; AI can make learning personalised. But neither can substitute for moral judgment, cultural context, or human connection — the qualities that define not just good teaching, but good societies.
Pakistan’s education crisis is not solely about access or infrastructure; it is, more fundamentally, a crisis of imagination. If we continue to view innovation as a luxury, we risk hardening the very hierarchies we seek to undo. But if we embrace it — with nuance, caution, and creativity — we may find that the future of learning is not less human, but more so.
Sal Khan may have spoken those words on an American broadcast. Yet their resonance echoes far beyond Silicon Valley. In the quiet classrooms of Gilgit, the sun-scorched schools of Tharparkar, and the crowded corridors of inner-city Karachi, that compass still points true: our north is human-to-human connection. All we must do is chart the course.
