Durham University Assistant Professor Dr Jasper Roe and British University Vietnam Associate Professor Dr Mike Perkins have secured £25,000 (€29,750) to expand a pilot of the AI Assessment Scale across voluntary secondary schools in the Republic of Ireland, as reported by Edtech Innovation Hub, through Durham University's UKRI Economic and Social Research Council Impact Acceleration Account.

The funding supports the next stage of a pilot developed in partnership with the Joint Managerial Body (JMB) for Voluntary Secondary Schools, which spent the past year testing how the AI Assessment Scale can inform assessment design as generative AI becomes more widely available to students and teachers.

The next phase will focus on developing training programmes, extending the evidence base collected through the pilot and producing practical resources designed to improve AI readiness across Ireland's secondary school system. Details of participating schools, project timelines and resulting materials have not yet been announced.

The AI Assessment Scale was developed to support decisions about assessment and generative AI use. According to Perkins' professional profile, the framework has been translated into more than 30 languages and implemented in more than 350 schools and universities internationally.

Perkins, Head of the Centre for Research and Innovation at British University Vietnam, said the funding enables a deeper evidence base to be built. "This new funding allows us to build on that work, deepen our evidence base, and continue developing practical approaches to assessment design in the age of generative AI," he said.

He recently presented findings from the Irish pilot in Dublin to representatives from the Irish Department of Education and Youth, the State Examinations Commission and Oide, adding that the discussion reinforced the need to move beyond abstract debate. "The discussion reinforced the importance of moving beyond abstract debates about AI and assessment, and towards practical frameworks that teachers, students, and school leaders can actually use," Perkins said.

Read the full details of the AI Assessment Scale expansion and its implications for Irish secondary education in the original report.