Is AI Helping or Hurting Learning in Basic Schools

A Primary 5 pupil gets stuck on a fractions problem at home. Her parents are unsure how to explain it, there is no tutor, and the next lesson is two days away. She opens an AI tool on a phone, types in the question and gets a clear explanation within seconds. Scenes like this are no longer unusual in Ghana, and they have put a question in front of parents, teachers and school owners that few were ready for: is artificial intelligence helping or hurting learning in basic schools?

Schools have faced this kind of question before. The calculator was once accused of making children lazy with numbers, and internet search of making copying too easy. Both were eventually absorbed into classroom life, and some people expect the same for AI. Others say the comparison breaks down. A calculator performs one step of a problem, while an AI tool can produce the whole piece of work, from the working to the essay to the conclusion. Whether the two cases are alike is already part of the disagreement.

Those who see benefits tend to start from moments like the one with the fractions. A patient explanation, repeated as many times as needed, is something many children do not get. Classes are large, teachers are stretched, and not every family can pay for extra lessons. AI tools can put an idea into simpler words, offer another example, and answer the question a child may be too shy to ask in class. For pupils who speak a Ghanaian language at home and learn in English, they can help with vocabulary and reading, and give quick feedback on a piece of writing before a teacher sees it.

Teachers use them to prepare lesson notes, set practice questions and adapt work for slower and faster learners, which returns some of the time that goes into planning and marking. Some parents find them useful too. A parent who left school early, or who is not confident in mathematics or English, may be able to follow a child's homework with the help of a tool, where before they could only say "ask your teacher".

Critics start from a different place. Basic school is where the foundations are laid: reading fluently, writing a proper sentence, working with numbers without reaching for a device. These skills are built through effort, including the frustrating parts. A pupil who hands the struggle to a machine may finish the homework quickly and learn very little from it. Teachers also worry that homework completed with AI no longer shows what a child can actually do, which makes it harder to tell who needs help.

Homework sits at the centre of this debate because of what it is for. It gives pupils practice, shows teachers who has understood, and builds the habit of working alone. If a machine does the work, it is fair to ask which of those purposes survives. Defenders reply that AI can make homework more interactive, since a child can ask why and get an answer at once. A third group says the real issue is the homework itself. Tasks with a single correct answer are easy to hand to a machine, while tasks that ask a pupil to measure something at home, interview a grandparent or explain an idea in their own words are harder to outsource. On that view, the tools are exposing a problem that was already there.

Age complicates all of this. A six-year-old learning letters and a JHS pupil drafting a composition are in very different positions, and few people argue that one rule suits both. The disagreement is over where the lines fall. Accuracy is a separate worry. AI tools can give answers that sound confident and are wrong, and a young learner is the person least likely to notice. Examples and wording may come from other countries, with little connection to the Ghanaian curriculum or a child's surroundings. The tools also tend to be stronger in English than in Ghanaian languages, which matters in lower primary, where a Ghanaian language is meant to be the medium of instruction in many schools.

Then there is access. A smartphone, data and a quiet place to use them are not available to every child, so if AI becomes part of how pupils learn, those who have it may pull further ahead of those who do not. Privacy is a question too, since tools used by children collect information about them, and many parents have not looked closely at what is collected.

The structure of Ghanaian schooling sharpens the tension. At the end of basic school, pupils sit the BECE in a hall, with pen and paper, and are assessed on what they can do alone. Everything that happens before then is meant to prepare them for that moment. Supporters say AI can strengthen the preparation through extra practice and explanation. Opponents say it can weaken it, if pupils lean on it so heavily that they arrive at the exam without the habits the exam tests.

Schools have not settled how to respond. Some ban the tools, some ignore them, and many leave the decision to individual teachers or to parents at home. Whether a school has a clear policy, and whether its teachers have been trained to apply it, varies from one school to the next.

Both sides raise points that deserve a hearing, and several questions remain open. At what age, if any, should a child begin using these tools? For which tasks, and under whose supervision? And who should decide: the school, the parent, or the education authorities? Readers with experience in classrooms or at home will have seen things that no argument can settle.

The author, Alpha Osei Amoako will host a live discussion on this question with Evans Ninson Assan and Michael Nyarko, both practising educators, on EduPoint, Alpha Pathway Educational Consult's TikTok LIVE, on Sunday, 15 November 2026 at 8:30 PM: tiktok.com/@alphapathwayeduconsult