Bihar Asks District Education Officers to Drive AI Adoption Across Government Schools and Institutions

Bihar’s Education Department has asked district education officers (DEOs) across the state to actively encourage officials and staff in government schools and educational institutions to use artificial intelligence tools in their day-to-day academic and administrative work. Generative AI applications such as ChatGPT and Claude are named in the advisory as examples.

According to reports in Hindustan, the letter went out to all DEOs on Friday, 30 October 2026, on the direction of Additional Chief Secretary (Education) C K Anil, who took charge of the department only a day earlier. Education Minister Mithilesh Tiwari had separately asked the department to prepare a detailed action plan for bringing AI into its functioning.

From drafting letters to monitoring schemes

The advisory frames AI primarily as a productivity aid for the education bureaucracy rather than a classroom tool. It notes that AI adoption in education is accelerating globally and argues that such tools can save time, simplify routine work and improve efficiency.

Specific use cases flagged include drafting official letters and circulars, as well as supporting the monitoring and review of departmental schemes and programmes at the district level. DEOs have been asked to build awareness among their teams and motivate officers and employees to try these applications.

State-wide licences and iGOT-based training

The education push sits within a broader state government effort. As reported, a communication from Chief Secretary Pratyaya Amrit states that the Department of Information Technology is in the process of procuring licences for OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot, with each department set to receive one licence of each tool.

A list of free AI tools for general use, spanning categories such as chatbots, writing, image and video creation, presentations and voice, has also been circulated, and staff are free to use other applications as well. For capacity building, departments have been asked to draw on iGOT, the Government of India’s online learning platform for civil servants. The IT Department is also preparing an AI training framework covering all officers as well as regular and contractual staff, and departments have been asked to identify participants and their training needs.

Each department has further been requested to designate a Joint Secretary-level officer and an IT manager as nodal officers for the initiative.

Why it matters

The move is notable for where it places AI first: in the administrative layer that runs schools, rather than in classrooms. If officials can use these tools to draft routine communication faster and track district-level programmes more closely, the time saved could be redirected to supervision and support for schools, provided adoption is backed by structured training rather than left to individual initiative.

The advisory also leaves several questions open, including guidelines on data privacy when official information is entered into commercial AI platforms, checks on the accuracy of AI-drafted communication, and whether the limited number of paid licences will reach district and block offices. How the IT Department’s training framework addresses these issues will determine whether the move translates into measurable gains in school governance.

Image: Shivam Setu / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)