July 2026
Imagine being handed a powerful new tool for your classroom – and a single sentence of guidance: use it well. Newsletter 13 of 14 in the series unpacking the World Economic Forum's Shaping the Future of Learning, on why teacher agency is non-negotiable.
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August 2026
There's a mismatch at the heart of how schools are handling AI. Ask students, and nearly all of them use it. Ask teachers, and many are still avoiding it. You can't teach what you're avoiding.
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Before the tool, before the policy, before the pilot — there's a conversation most schools haven't had. It's the one that determines whether everything else works.
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In the worst-case 2045 there are two tiers: wealthy families buy human attention, small classes and a place in a handful of trusted institutions, while everyone else gets a machine. Part 1 of 3 on whether schools and universities will still matter.
4 min readRead articleAbout the Author
Paul Penfold is an education and technology consultant based in Chiang Mai, Thailand, with six decades of experience spanning classroom teaching, academic research, government policy, and humanitarian service. He advises schools, ministries, and EdTech companies on AI in education, alternative education, and learning technology, and has published 37 papers on immersive and virtual-world learning. His career includes refugee education on the Thai-Cambodian border, pioneering virtual-world hospitality education at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and national tourism HR strategies across Asia and the Caribbean.
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