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Hong Kong schools are increasingly adopting AI for teaching and administrative tasks, urging educators to deepen their understanding for effective use. Photo: Nora Tam
Approximately 60 per cent of schools in Hong Kong are utilising artificial intelligence (AI) for teaching and administrative tasks, according to a survey. The researchers behind the study are urging educators to deepen their understanding of this technology to more effectively guide students.
The Education University of Hong Kong shared its findings on Tuesday, with the survey showing about 20 per cent of primary and secondary schools were actively exploring the use of AI in teaching, learning and administrative work.
Another 40 per cent told researchers they had begun using the technology but were still learning from other schools about how to implement it.
The remaining 40 per cent said they were delaying the introduction of such software, citing a shortage of AI talent, manpower constraints and limited funding.
Between May and June, researchers surveyed 1,892 people working at 65 primary schools, 82 secondary schools and 16 special schools and other institutions.
Among the respondents, 61 per cent focused on teaching applications, while the rest addressed administrative use.
Professor Kong Siu-cheung, director of the university’s Artificial Intelligence and Digital Competency Education Centre and the study’s lead researcher, said the sector’s AI adoption rate was strong, by global standards.
“Teachers get paid regardless of whether they adopt new technology – many educators in Europe and elsewhere simply do the minimum,” he said. “In that context, Hong Kong is moving ahead.”
Kong said teachers must understand the mechanics of AI to use it effectively in the classroom and guide students as learning designers rather than just transmitting knowledge.
“When teachers fully understand the self-attention mechanism and the QKV details inside a transformer, they will not feel intimidated,” he said.
QKV refers to the mathematical system inside a large language model that locates which words matter most to generate an answer.
“The student must do the thinking first, draft their own outline, then use the machine to build on it. Without this foundation, teachers cannot stop pupils from simply generating answers.”
The report showed that teachers still needed to enhance their understanding of generative AI and how to integrate professional knowledge of teaching practices to guide students in using such tools.
Kong said the Education Bureau’s blueprint on digital education required teachers to undergo AI training, but the push should focus on how the technology worked rather than overwhelming them with technical terms.
Under the blueprint, teachers must complete at least 30 hours of digital education training every three years.
Schools must also incorporate digital elements into annual development plans and roll out an innovation and technology curriculum for pupils.
Principal Lee Yi-ying of Kowloon True Light School said educators must embrace rapid technological change even though learning new tools was hard work.
“Technology changes by the day – as educators, we must maintain an open attitude, but of course it is tiring for us because we have to learn new things,” she said.
“When I started my career, we were still using carbon paper and photocopiers. I never learned coding, yet now you are doing things that require it.”
Patrick Lam Hak-chung, chief principal of ELCHK Lutheran Academy, said his school used AI for adaptive assessment in biology to pinpoint exactly where each pupil was struggling.
“Through adaptive assessment, pupils start with a medium-difficulty question and the system adjusts higher or lower based on their answers,” he said, adding that AI allowed teachers to move beyond mechanical marking.
“A report is generated showing for every student which concepts they have grasped and which they still do not understand, so the teacher can actively help them.”
Lam said his school also applied AI to administrative work, using it to analyse years of stakeholder and school development questionnaire data.
“We used to spend four hours looking for patterns, but with Gemini it takes 10 minutes,” he said. “I give it a prompt and it gives solutions. Some are useful, while some miss the mark because it does not know our school context.”
He said management and teachers then verified the results to identify gaps between parents, students and staff before deciding on the school’s future direction.
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