GIC director Josine Overdevest took a two-year pause from the AI noise in education. This is what she is stepping back into.
“Hahahahaha!” I can’t help but smile at the sound of laughter coming through my 10th floor windows. It’s from the woman who sells pumice stones and sponges on the pavement next to my apartment block. Her laughter has brightened my day for years. The only time I didn’t hear it was during the days of COVID lockdowns. I’ll never forget the first time I heard her laughter when restrictions were lifted. I laughed through my tears of relief at this joyful sign of human resilience.
I often thought of that moment during a more recent disruption. In November 2023, ChatGPT and other generative AI models in its wake entered the stage and overnight, everything shifted. At first, I was curious, experimenting with the early models and exploring what they could do. Soon, I began reflecting on what this technological breakthrough meant for life in general and for the work I have been immersed in for decades: bridging the digital divide in basic education. I could not find quick answers and I realised that thinking about the questions was far more interesting. So I took a step back. I paused. I observed.
I first noticed the extremes. I could scroll through my LinkedIn feed in the morning and see posts overflowing with optimism: AI would transform education, give learners agency over their own journeys and prepare them for a future that is mainly digital. In the afternoon, the feedback from my digital skills coaches’ school visits would remind me of the reality many education systems still face. In one school, connectivity was off. Another had no electricity. At a third, learners stormed out in frustration because there were not enough devices for everyone.
And that is just the physical infrastructure. The human infrastructure is equally if not more complex. Resistance to change is still real. Teachers are overworked, curricula leave little room for experimentation, and even the most well-intentioned innovations can fail if people are not ready or supported.
How can we integrate AI in education if we cannot even get the foundations right?
But the infrastructure gap was not the only part that troubled me. I have experienced how technology can shape us, often in ways we barely notice. Screens and shortcuts can fragment attention, dull curiosity and quietly replace effort with automation. People can drift into a kind of digital zombie mode, doing tasks without thinking, outsourcing judgment and memory to machines, scrolling endlessly through social media feeds. I wonder how many of us still navigate without GPS, or sit uninterrupted with a physical book.
Observing this, I began to question whether bridging the digital divide really serves young people if it leads them into this kind of passivity. What is gained if we connect learners to technology only for them to lose their capacity to focus, to reflect or to wrestle with a problem until they find their own answer?
Then, recently, I came across two reports that gave me relief. I was not alone in my questioning, and looking for a way forward. The November 2025 OECD’s Education for Human Flourishing: A conceptual framework reminded me why I became so passionate about education in the first place. It reframes learning not as a narrow preparation for the workforce, but as the cultivation of human potential: knowledge, ethical judgment, creativity and agency.
The report provides concrete examples of this vision in action: learners navigating ethical dilemmas in AI supported projects, designing solutions to local challenges, reflecting on their own learning paths and exploring diverse cultural perspectives. It affirmed what I had been wrestling with: education’s role is not to keep pace with technology, which it can’t anyway, but to ensure learners develop the capacities to thrive, not just in a digital world, but in any world they inherit. And flourishing individuals contribute to flourishing societies and economies in harmony with the planet, as the OECD framework argues.
If the OECD report speaks to why education matters, the February 2026 paper, Technologies Smarter, Humans “Dumber”? How Technological Advances Improve and Diminish Human Cognition and What This Means for Education explores how technology interacts with human cognition within that purpose.
Authored by Dr Dirk van Damme, the report is a careful, nuanced exploration of how technology shapes our thinking. It discusses the risks of outsourcing our judgement and memory and of fragmented attention, but it also highlights the exciting capabilities humans gain alongside technology.
The report reminds us that this is not new. The printing press took over memorisation, freeing people’s minds to analyse, interpret and debate. Calculators relieved the burden of computation, allowing us to focus on problem-solving strategies. Maps and navigation tools replaced memorisation of routes but expanded spatial awareness and planning skills. Writing tools, from pen and paper to typewriters and word processors, gradually reduced the cognitive load of transcription and revision, making it easier to reorganise ideas and refine arguments. Each wave of technology took over certain capabilities, but in doing so, created room for new ones.
And now AI is the next iteration of this same pattern. A learner who uses generative AI to draft, to explore, to test ideas quickly isn’t necessarily thinking less, they may be thinking at a level they couldn’t reach before, connecting ideas and asking better questions.
The issue isn’t the technology. It’s whether we remain in the driving seat.
Van Damme argues that education’s job is not to resist technology, but to decide deliberately what remains human: attention, judgement, the capacity to wrestle with a problem.
A careful use of technology, balanced with human agency, ensures that learners flourish even as they gain new capabilities.
Together, these reports made something clear to me: we are moving beyond the initial reactions to the generative AI revolution. We are no longer in the circus of hype, nor trapped in doom and gloom scenarios. We are observing, questioning, and responding, humans regaining control. Rationalising. Thinking critically. Collaborating. Considering how technology can support human and planetary flourishing, rather than replace it.
This is what excites me: the shift from “AI is everything” to “Let us embrace human potential and agency.” Let’s take time to explore the questions rather than provide quick answers. How do we ensure learners develop curiosity, judgment and agency alongside their digital skills? How do we design education systems that put human beings first, balancing infrastructure, human readiness and the promises of technology?
After my two-year pause, I am again inspired by the horizon in front of me. With the hawker’s laughter drifting up to my window, I step forward, curious about what comes next and glad to be travelling in such good company
References.
OECD (2025), Education for human flourishing: A conceptual framework, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/73d7cb96-en
Van Damme, D. (2026). Technologies Smarter, Humans “Dumber”? How Technological Advances Improve and Diminish Human Cognition and What This Means for Education. Boston, MA: Center for Curriculum Redesign.
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