Homework is becoming “worse than useless” because savvy pupils are using AI to complete assignments, according to a new report. The Parent Voice Project reveals that the number of parents suspicious their child delegates homework to ChatGPT or its competitors has risen from 47% to 57% in just one year.
Vanessa Feltz, writing for Express, argues that this trend exposes a long-standing flaw in homework: it is inherently ineffective. “Any kid with an ounce of gumption will harness AI, ditch ‘prep’ and choose liberty,” she writes. “Cheating sucks, but homework stinks to high heaven.”
Homework: A Pointless Grind
Feltz recalls the misery of homework from her own childhood, including Sunday evenings ruined by unfinished essays and interminable maths problems looming over summer evenings. She describes the “hellish grind” of writing an enforced diary every weekend at age seven, and the “terrible tedium” of a six-page essay on Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind, which remains unmarked to this day.
“The crucial flaw with homework, as parents, children and teachers know, is that if you have mastered the subject, you answer correctly and if you didn’t get the principle in class, your answers are wrong,” Feltz explains. “If you’re acing quadrilateral equations, you don’t need to waste your free time doing 40 more. If you haven’t got a clue, it’s pointless stewing in your own juice while getting 40 of the nasty things horribly wrong.”
Teachers Turn to AI for Marking
Feltz notes that teachers are also using AI to handle the burden of marking. “Any teacher worth his/her salt now drafts in AI to make mincemeat of the marking which squats over family life,” she writes. She calls for an Education Secretary brave enough to “sound the death knell” for homework.
Feltz shares a personal anecdote: “I’m not the only mum who faked her daughter’s eight-year-old handwriting to finish ‘How would you feel if you were a Roman centurion?’ It had kept her up past midnight.” She concludes that AI has not rendered homework pointless; it was always “an unadulterated drag.”
