In classrooms across Kenya, a quiet revolution is beginning to stir. Artificial Intelligence (AI), long the stuff of science fiction, is now marking essays, guiding revision, and even mentoring learners via chatbots and adaptive learning platforms. From Kibera to Kakamega, Mombasa to Marsabit, Kenyan students and teachers are experimenting with tools like ChatGPT, seeking smarter ways to teach and learn. The goal? To bridge the country’s glaring educational divides. The reality? A mixture of real promise and rising peril that demands urgent attention.
On paper, AI seems like the perfect solution for Kenya’s struggling education system. It can personalise learning to meet each student’s pace, relieve overworked teachers of repetitive tasks, and extend lessons to places where teachers are too few or schools are too far. In a country where overcrowded classrooms, outdated textbooks, and teacher shortages remain chronic, this sounds like a breakthrough.
But in practice, the promise of AI quickly hits familiar barriers: unreliable electricity, patchy internet, costly gadgets, and a lack of digital literacy. Visit a rural school in Turkana or Tana River, and you’ll likely find children learning under trees or in poorly lit classrooms, let alone classrooms equipped for the AI era. For many students, especially outside urban centres, owning a smartphone or accessing a stable internet connection remains a luxury. Meanwhile, many teachers, already overburdened by CBC demands and limited in-service training, are left to figure out AI integration with little to no support.
This creates a new kind of digital divide within a digital revolution. Learners in well-resourced private or international schools experiment with AI-enhanced learning. Their peers in public schools, especially in marginalised areas, are left watching from the sidelines. Instead of levelling the playing field, AI risks deepening inequality.
Then there’s the ethical minefield. Most AI tools used in Kenya are designed in the Global North, trained on Western datasets, and coded with little understanding of African languages, contexts, or cultures. Ask ChatGPT to explain a Gikuyu proverb or recognise Sheng slang, and you’ll hit the limits of its training. Worse, these tools can unconsciously reflect racial, gender, or class biases, subtly reinforcing stereotypes. Without robust laws to protect learners’ data or ensure transparency, we risk handing over personal information to opaque algorithms we neither control nor fully understand.
And yet, this is not a story of failure. It is a story of possibility if we act with urgency, foresight, and inclusion. In my research and conversations with students, teachers, and education stakeholders across Kenya, I found cautious optimism. Students spoke of AI helping them revise missed work or clarify difficult concepts. Teachers, particularly in resource-poor schools, saw value in AI delivering content where libraries were empty or labs underfunded. The problem isn’t that AI isn’t useful. The problem is how easy or hard it is to access, trust, and use it responsibly.
What Kenya needs now is a bold, coordinated national response.
We must treat internet connectivity and digital access as a basic educational right. That means investing in rural broadband, subsidized devices, and solar-powered learning centres. We must reimagine teacher training, not only teaching educators how to use AI tools, but how to question them, adapt them, and maintain human-centered classrooms. And we must ensure that the AI tools we use in Kenyan schools reflect Kenyan realities designed with input from local educators, translated into Kiswahili and local languages, and grounded in our cultural and pedagogical traditions.
Just as importantly, our laws must catch up with our tech. Kenya’s current education and data protection frameworks do not adequately regulate AI use in learning. Who is liable if an AI tool gives a student false feedback? What consent mechanisms exist when children use these tools in class? What are the red lines? These are not futuristic hypotheticals they are happening already. And yet, Parliament, the Ministry of Education, and the ICT Authority remain largely silent.
AI is not a silver bullet. It will not fix broken systems or replace the irreplaceable role of human teachers. But used thoughtfully, it can be a powerful tool to support critical thinking, encourage creativity, and expand access, particularly for underserved learners. The future of AI in Kenyan education is not about automation for its own sake. It is about augmentation: enhancing, not erasing, the role of teachers and contextual knowledge.
Kenya now has the chance to do what few have done: shape AI from the ground up, not as a passive consumer of imported tools, but as a proactive shaper of ethical, inclusive, and locally relevant technology. The future is already in our classrooms. The question is: are we ready to meet it?
Ohaga Ohaga is a journalist, researcher, and communications specialist with an interest in AI’s Impact on education, technology, and policy in Kenya.
