OpenAI Partners with American Teachers Union, Invests $10 Million to Train 400,000 Teachers to Use AI in Classrooms
OpenAI announces a major partnership to establish an AI skills training institute for US teachers, alongside the free launch of 'ChatGPT for Teachers'.
OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT, has announced a partnership with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) as a co-founding partner of the "National Academy for AI Instruction". This 5-year project aims to train 400,000 K–12 teachers (elementary to high school level), which accounts for approximately 1 in 10 of all teachers in the US. OpenAI has pledged $10 million in support for this project over 5 years, as part of a larger $23 million initiative that also includes other tech companies like Microsoft and Anthropic. Additionally, OpenAI has launched "ChatGPT for Teachers," a free version available to K-12 teachers in the US until June 2027. It will initially be rolled out to a group of school districts with a combined total of around 150,000 teachers. Survey data also indicates that currently, 6 out of 10 teachers are already using AI tools and find that it saves them an average of 6 hours of work per week.
This move reflects a global trend where AI is becoming a fundamental tool in the classroom, potentially serving as a model for the Thai education sector to adapt and prepare teachers for the future.