The Inclusion of AI and EI in Indian Education: A Critical Review
Keywords:
Affective computing, Artificial intelligence, Emotional intelligence, Human–AI collaboration, Indian education, Pedagogy, Social–emotional learningAbstract
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been growing and is being used rapidly in educational practices, transforming schools in ways that make learning more personalized, automate administrative activities, and improve adaptive instruction systems. Such technological improvements have increased the efficiency, accessibility, and scalability of teaching and learning processes to a great extent. The teaching practice cannot be reduced to mental and technological processes. It is mainly a practice that is centered on human aspects that are strongly connected with emotional intelligence (EI). Some of the key skills that are part of EI include empathy, emotional sensitivity, self-control, and the ability to build meaningful relationships with people. They are all part of engaging, motivating, and developing students. This review critically assesses the possibility of replication or replacement of EI by AI technology in an educational context, with a special emphasis on the Indian context. The potential of AI in affective computing, emotion recognition, and emotionally adaptive feedback systems is analyzed based on a comprehensive literature review from 2020 to 2025, including empirical research, systematic reviews, and national policies. The findings do, however, point to several important things regarding the ability of AI to successfully mimic a human’s EI. AI cannot comprehend emotions, ethics, contexts, and cultures, which play a crucial role in multicultural classrooms in India. The study argues that AI can only mimic some of the emotional processes but cannot replicate the real process of emotional interactions of people during the course of teaching. The study highlights that AI is meant to augment, not substitute, EI. They advocate a balanced collaboration between humans and AI in the teaching process.
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