Can AI transform education systems in the Global South? with Fernando Reimers, Zainab Azim, Maria-Renee Palomo and Callysta Thony

This episode of Silver Lining for Learning features a deep dive into a new book on artificial intelligence and education systems, with a special focus on the Global South—where most of the world’s young people live and where educational challenges are most acute. Rather than taking a techno‑optimistic stance, the book adopts a systems perspective, examining how AI intersects with curriculum, teaching, assessment, school organization, and governance under real‑world constraints of resources, capacity, and policy. Framed around three guiding questions—whether education systems can build broad AI literacy, whether AI can actually improve foundational learning, and whether it can make curricula more relevant to 21st‑century social and economic needs—the conversation explores what it would take for AI to support genuine transformation rather than isolated pockets of innovation.

Drawing on international evidence, case studies, and early implementations of AI in classrooms and systems, the episode highlights both the possibilities and the serious risks of deepening inequality if AI is adopted without attention to access, teacher support, cultural relevance, and ethics. We’ll discuss how current AI applications tend to benefit more privileged groups, what a truly systemic approach would look like in the Global South, and why teacher development, educational leadership, and coherent regulation (on issues like data privacy and algorithmic bias) are non‑negotiable. We will discuss what a critical, human‑centered roadmap for leveraging AI as a tool for equity, dignity, and the full development of all students, rather than as a new driver of division.

Readings and Resources:

Artificial Intelligence and Education in the Global South https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-032-11449-5

Episode Guests

Fernando Reimers is the Ford Foundation Professor at Harvard University, USA and Director of the Global Education Innovation Initiative. He is an elected member of the US and the International Academies of Education. His research focuses on 21st-century global education, sustainable development, and responses to educational challenges such as COVID-19.

Zainab Azim is a Teaching Fellow at Harvard Graduate School of Education, USA. Her work bridges. education policy and learning science with AI in global development. She’s led AI training for STEM educators in LMICs, evaluated AI in Uganda and Canada, and founded the Harvard AI and Education Conference. Zainab has a background in neuroscience, formerly worked at the Ministry of Finance in Canada and was an Oval Office Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, USA.

Maria-Renée Palomo holds degrees from Harvard University, USA and Sciences Po Paris, France. Born in El Salvador, she spent a decade in France working in public sector consulting. She is assistant director of the Education Lab for Latin America and a teaching assistant at Harvard Graduate School of Education, USA, she was also in the founding team of the AI and education in the Global South conference at Harvard.

Callysta Thony is a graduate and Teaching Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, USA where she focused on global education policy. She formerly worked with GovTech Edu Indonesia supporting the Indonesian Ministry of Education in nationwide digital transformation. She is interested in exploring how the effective use of technology can address key challenges in education. She was part of the leadership team which initiated the inaugural Harvard AI & Education Conference.

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