HPI chief surprises with AI proposal to tackle Pisa weakness

TVS News AI, editorially supervised, presents HPI chief surprises with AI proposal to tackle Pisa weakness.

What's behind Gerdtom Markotten's AI proposal?

Germany has performed at best middling in international education comparisons for years. A new idea from academia wants to change that – and connects to something most people are familiar with from their own childhood.

In a guest commentary in the Handelsblatt, Daniela Gerdtom Markotten, Managing Director of the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI), presents a proposal aimed at providing access to AI-supported learning. Her goal: to fix the Pisa weakness of the German education system.

What has emerged from the proposal so far

The core idea: Artificial intelligence should directly support pupils in their learning – as an additional tool in everyday school life. Her model, says Gerdtom Markotten, is familiar to almost everyone from childhood. The specific model is explained in her Handelsblatt guest commentary.

Gerdtom Markotten heads the Hasso Plattner Institute, one of Germany's most distinguished institutions for digital education. She has been involved in the debate about the use of AI in schools for years.

Why Pisa remains a perennial topic in Germany

Since the first Pisa shock in 2000, Germany has been among the countries that regularly fall short of their own expectations. Whether reading, mathematics, or science – the international tests repeatedly reveal strengths but also clear weaknesses. Every German administration has had the issue land on its table, yet lasting changes have so far often failed to materialize.

What makes the idea special

What sets Gerdtom Markotten's initiative apart from many previous reform papers is the backward glance: Rather than starting from scratch, she draws on a model familiar to many from their own school days. Whether the proposal finds open ears in Berlin and among the federal states remains to be seen. What's clear: the German education debate has received a new impulse from research.