“While the government was already working to introduce AI knowledge in curricula, the focus now will be on delivering AI-assisted applications, pushing towards “AI-sovereignty,” Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu
The Ministry of Education is working with the goal of ensuring that Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools become a part of teaching and learning in one way or another from the kindergarten to the research levels by the next academic year, officials said on Wednesday (December 11, 2026).
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan met with leaders of 10 leading start-ups using AI in the ed-tech sector at a roundtable discussion in IIT Delhi, ahead of the government’s Bharat Bodhan AI Conclave starting on Thursday (December 12).
Officials told presspersons on Wednesday (December 11) that the government will be launching Bodhan AI during the conclave, which is expected to lead to a digital public infrastructure (DPI) for the education sector as a whole. One official explained that this initiative is expected to work as a platform that can provide upcoming start-ups in this sector with reliable application programming interfaces (APIs) that they can use to build models and deliver AI-led applications to end users like teachers and students.
Mr. Pradhan said that while the government was already working to introduce AI knowledge in curricula, the focus now will be on delivering AI-assisted applications, pushing towards “AI-sovereignty”. Applications include using the tool for teacher capacity building programmes, for preparing personalised lesson plans based on content already produced by institutions like the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT)and State CERTs.
The Education Minister argued that while the government had made significant efforts to take digital devices and internet connectivity to far-flung areas of the country, the next challenge is to use AI to deliver content to students in these regions. He added that AI tools would also play a major role in the country’s skilling and upskilling initiatives.
After the roundtable on Wednesday (December 11), which was also attended by Skill Development Minister Jayant Chaudhary, Mr. Pradhan posted on social media, saying that the founders he met were “home-grown”, from “middle-class and tier-III city backgrounds”, “who are building indigenous AI stacks ‘for the world, from India’, particularly for transforming and redefining the educational landscape”.
“Their innovative solutions and deep understanding for integrating ‘AI in Education’ and creating impactful solutions for addressing real-world and India-centric educational challenges inspires great confidence,” he said.
The roundtable at IIT Delhi was held as a precursor to the upcoming India AI Impact Summit, and the insights from this discussion “will inform policy and ecosystem deliberations” at the summit, with a focus on “responsible AI adoption, safeguards, and pathways for scaling impact across sectors, including education”, a statement from the Education Ministry said.
Among the founders at the roundtable were that of start-ups like Arivihan and Vedantu, who had come up with applications for AI in their ed-tech platforms that help personalise the learning process for students, and act as “companions in learning”. Arivihan’s founders spoke about the AI-tutor they had created, which helped students through the entire process of learning, from planning lessons, taking assessments, and correcting papers with useful suggestions.
Meanwhile, Vedantu founders presented the progress of their AI-assistant VED, which is capable of giving personalised attention to students who take their courses, “sometimes, even better than a teaching assistant can”. One of the founders, Pulkit Jain, explained: “VED attends classes with the students, solves doubts during live lectures, checks subjective answers with suggestions, and is capable of designing personalised tests and quizzes for students.”
Officials said the Bharat Bodhan AI Conclave, over the next two days, will see start-ups in this sector present such ideas and demonstrate their products.
A government statement said that the Education Minister encouraged “these pioneers” to build solutions that are “tailored to Indian values, languages, context, and need, while also ensuring global relevance”. The Minister assured the founders of “all the support in harnessing the transformative power of AI for addressing national educational and skilling priorities, shaping Bharat’s technological and digital sovereignty and building impactful DPIs in education”.
Published – February 11, 2026 11:13 pm IST
