Artificial intelligence education is set to begin as early as sixth grade in government schools across Karnataka, India. The state government has announced new programs designed to equip students with technological skills and prepare them for a rapidly changing job market.

Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D. K. Shivakumar announced the initiative in an Independence Day address on Aug. 15.

“We are entering a new technological era. The era of AI and coding is your era—a new era,” he said.

The government has also announced plans to establish India’s first state-owned artificial intelligence university in Bengaluru. The initiative is part of Karnataka’s broader goal of growing its economy to $3 trillion by 2047, with technology and skills development seen as key drivers of that ambition.

The Role of Arts Education

As India moves to introduce AI to children at an increasingly young age, an international research project is drawing attention to another essential dimension of learning: the role of the arts and creative education.

The study, “The Future of Creative Education: What We Can Learn About Technology from Art Teachers and Their Classrooms,” was presented at the ACM Designing Interactive Systems (DIS 2026) conference, held in Singapore from June 13–17, 2026.

Its central argument challenges the assumption that the growing influence of technology will inevitably make art teachers less relevant. Instead, the research suggests that their role may become even more important in an increasingly technology-driven educational environment.

The researchers interviewed 19 high school art teachers in the United States, examining the barriers that limit their use of technology, the values they prioritize in their classrooms, and how the role of educators is evolving as new technologies become increasingly embedded in teaching and learning.

One of the study’s authors, Isabel Li, an artist, writer and human-computer interaction researcher whose work explores creativity, arts education and how educators respond to technological change.

A key takeaway from the study is that technology should not impose its own logic on the educational environment. Instead, technology designers can learn from art teachers, who already have experience building creative communities, combining diverse tools and helping students develop their own ideas.

The researchers argue that art teachers need not only access to technology and adequate resources, but also the autonomy to decide when and how those tools should be used.
The fundamental question is not simply how much technology a school has, but who is using it, why they are using it, and what kind of learning it is intended to support.

This is where the art classroom can offer an essential counterbalance: not simply teaching children how to use a tool, but encouraging them to create, make informed choices, articulate their ideas and take ownership of their work.

Ultimately, the study calls for technology to be designed around the needs of creative learning communities, rather than forcing education to adapt to technological demands.
This raises a larger question for education in the age of AI: the challenge may not be simply to understand what machines can do, but to decide what humans still need to learn.