Neither outcome is likely. Every major technological shift relocates effort rather than eliminates it. When calculators arrived, arithmetic did not disappear; judgment about numbers became more important.
When search engines flourished, memory mattered less, discernment more. AI simply accelerates that pattern. If machines can generate fluent answers, the scarce skill becomes knowing when those answers are thin, wrong or ethically hollow.
This is where Irish schooling, at its best, has something to offer. Our strongest classrooms were never factories for polished output. They were places where students learnt to argue, to doubt, to read between the lines and to sense when something sounded clever but meant little. Those habits were formed in conversation, not computation.
The real danger is not that students will rely on AI, but that schools will bolt it on to old assessment models and call that progress. If that happens, AI will flatten thinking. If schools redesign around evaluation, interpretation and moral reasoning, AI will sharpen it.
Systems that treat AI as a shortcut will produce faster but thinner minds. Those that teach students to interrogate the machine will quietly outperform them. In the long run, judgment will matter more than generation, and schools that understand this will pull ahead.
Enda Cullen, Tullysaran Road, Armagh
Rule of ‘finders keepers’ for Trump makes mockery of real achievements
The assertion by Eric Conway (‘Why I disagree with letter writer’s assessment of Trump and his actions’, Letters, January 22) that the exhibit, by Donald Trump, of a piece of engraved metal, entitles him to the peace honour with which that trophy is associated is an interesting one which got me thinking.
At 72 years of age, I am unlikely to fulfil a boyhood dream of winning an All-Ireland senior hurling medal with my native Kilkenny. However, his suggestion that “possession is nine-tenths of the law”, if true, would allow me to accept, from one of the many Kilkenny hurlers possessing such a title, one or more Liam MacCarthy Cup medals which I could then proudly parade as my own.
Goodness me, if I get enough of them, I could be the most decorated hurler in history. Glory at last, or is it that I have woken up to the fact that I share the same magpie trait from which Mr Trump appears to suffer?
Jimmy O’ Brien, Dukesmeadows, Co Kilkenny
Misadventures of Donald Quixote are in desperate need of a dose of reality
Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes, I suspect, did not anticipate a sequel to Don Quixote appearing some four centuries later –nor that it would unfold in real time, on the internet and in social media.
In Cervantes’ tale, we meet Alonso Quijano, a minor nobleman who reads so many chivalric romances that reality gives up. Convinced the world is crying out for his heroism, he reinvents himself as Don Quixote de la Mancha, dons armour, mounts his steed, and rides off to combat evil wherever he imagines it to be.
Substitute a golf cart for a nag and a blond toupee for a dented helmet, and the resemblance to Donald Trump becomes increasingly difficult to ignore. Like Quijano, Mr Trump appears to inhabit a universe in which he is for ever the wronged hero, eternally beset by shadowy villains yet always on the brink of glorious vindication. He wages battle against a rogues’ gallery of conspirators: election officials, judges, journalists, scientists – and, on particularly energetic days, entire countries.
Let’s pray that Mr Trump will dismount from his high horse and make peace with reality.
Joe Terry, Blarney, Cork
US president’s actions show ‘war’ and ‘peace’ are just empty words to him
Last year, US president Donald Trump renamed the Department of Defence to Department of War and now he is attempting to form a Board for Peace comprising world leaders who agree to join with only the US having the power of veto.
Is there not an apparent contradiction here. Is the president interested in war or peace?
Richard Whitty, Swords, Co Dublin
In a troubled world, we must not lose sight of the hope education can bring
Early 2026 has not made it easy to look ahead with optimism. Across the globe, institutions and norms are being questioned or actively undermined. For organisations like Plan International, whose work is grounded in multilateralism and shared commitments to human rights, this moment feels particularly fragile.
The post-war system was never perfect. But it did avert a third world war, helped lift hundreds of millions out of extreme poverty and embedded the idea that everyone – including children, women and marginalised communities – has rights that transcend borders and politics.
Yet too many people in positions of power seem to have forgotten why that system was built. It can be tempting, in such times, to retreat into cynicism. But history suggests a more hopeful truth. As Seamus Heaney wrote in The Cure at Troy, there are moments when “hope and history rhyme”. Those moments are built through deliberate choices made by people and institutions willing to invest in the future, even when the present feels uncertain.
Hope, then, is not passive. It is constructed. And one of the most powerful choices any society can make is to invest in education.
This International Day of Education is an opportunity to recognise education’s central role in shaping a fairer and more stable future. Over the past half century, it has reduced child mortality, expanded opportunity, strengthened civic participation and transformed gender relations. Each additional year a girl spends in school reduces her risk of child marriage and improves the life chances of her children.
Education is also a bulwark against forces seeking to roll back rights.
In classrooms, young people learn agency, critical thinking and the confidence to question injustice.
There are, despite everything, real grounds for hope. Ireland is one of them. With Irish Aid support, Plan International Ireland worked with more than 53,000 children last year through education programmes in West Africa, many living in fragile and conflict-affected settings.
Today, more than 250 million children remain out of school worldwide.
Without sustained commitment, recent gains could unravel.
Feargal O’Connell, CEO, Plan International Ireland