The Department for Education has confirmed that artificial intelligence has been used in the analysis of the curriculum and assessment review’s call for evidence, Tes can report.

School leaders have questioned why this was not “made explicit at the outset” of the curriculum and assessment review.

In a statement shared with Tes, a DfE spokesperson said that using AI is “common practice” for large-scale government consultations - for “minor automated text analysis to support identifying overarching trends and patterns in sentiment” - but that the analysis was “human-led by skilled researchers”.

Use of AI in the curriculum review

The spokesperson added that the government is “clear” that the public sector should use “approved AI technology to create efficiencies”.

This follows Tes’ exclusive reporting last week in which school leaders called for “full transparency” about the role of AI in the review, amid concerns that important nuance could be missed, affecting the outcome of the review.

Tes had previously made multiple attempts to contact Alma Economics - the company carrying out the analysis, which stresses its AI credentials on its website - and first asked the DfE on 13 May to confirm whether AI or machine learning had been used. No response was received before publication last Friday, 6 June.

However, the DfE has since confirmed that AI was used to analyse the more than 7,000 responses to the call for evidence, 2,350 of which were submitted by teachers, lecturers and school and college leaders.

It is the first time that the DfE or any member of the review panel has officially informed the public or those who submitted evidence to the review that AI has been used.

Sarah Hannafin, head of policy at the NAHT school leaders’ union, said: “It is good to finally have a clear answer from the DfE, which seems to align with their stated view that AI ‘cannot replace the judgement and deep subject knowledge of a human expert’.”

She added: “This really should have been made explicit at the outset, and it should be stated in all government consultations or calls for evidence if this is the approach taken.

“It remains unclear why the analysis of the responses to the call for evidence has not yet been published. We would have expected this to happen alongside the interim curriculum review report to explain why some issues have been taken forward and others have not.”

Importance of transparency

Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said he was “pleased that the DfE has confirmed that the analysis of this consultation was ‘human-led’ and that it has committed to publishing details of the process used alongside the final report”.

He added that this week the DfE published guidance for schools and colleges about the use of AI, which “repeatedly advised them on the importance of being transparent about the use of AI - so it is good to see it’ll follow this principle itself”.

Tes asked the DfE why it had not informed those submitting evidence to the review that AI would be used to analyse responses, and whether AI could truly reflect the nuance of education specialists’ views.

A DfE spokesperson said: “The integrity of the review is our main focus, and safeguards are in place to ensure no bias is introduced and there is appropriate weighting of views - including that no responses are overlooked.”

They added: “When the call for evidence launched, the review team was still procuring a supplier and the method of analysing the responses could not be confirmed until a supplier was selected and the scale of responses was known.

“Details on the analysis process will be published in the call for evidence final report, which will be published alongside the review’s final report, for transparency.”

The call for evidence closed on 22 November 2024 and Alma Economics was handed the contract for analysis the same day. The order specification for the contract, which stated that AI techniques were among the tools “likely” to be used in the analysis, was published on 6 November.

Tes put these points to the DfE and asked whether it knew that AI was going to be used before the call for evidence began. The DfE said it had nothing further to add.

The DfE has not confirmed whether Alma Economics used its purpose-built, AI-enhanced consultation analysis tool called Cobflow to analyse the call for evidence.

Alma’s website states that Cobflow includes “powerful AI capabilities to help automate time-intensive tasks”, but also has safeguards that “ensure full compliance with statutory requirements and effective human control of all AI-produced output”.

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