El Salvador is incorporating artificial intelligence into its public education system through a broader reform that combines AI tutors, digital learning platforms, teacher support, technology, and new educational tools.
The initiative, highlighted by President Nayib Bukele, is being implemented initially through a pilot program in Salvadoran public schools and has produced results that the government describes as promising.
At the center of the initiative are AI tutors and learning platforms designed to support students as part of a broader educational model. The program is not limited to artificial intelligence, however, and also incorporates teacher training, support for school administrators, educational materials, monitoring, evaluation, infrastructure, and connectivity.
The AI tools are being developed with Grok, Kira Learning, and I Hate Flying Bugs, while international institutions including the World Bank, CAF, and the Inter-American Development Bank are supporting broader efforts to strengthen El Salvador’s education system.
Bukele has emphasized that the academic results observed in the pilot should not be attributed exclusively to AI tutors. Multiple components operate simultaneously, potentially influencing student engagement, teacher performance, and learning outcomes.
This distinction is central to the government’s approach: rather than treating AI as a standalone solution, the technology is being integrated into a wider transformation of how public education is delivered.
The initial pilot involved 171 public schools and 1,198 students, whose PISA for Schools results in reading, mathematics, and science were comparable with average results in Germany and Sweden.
The next phase will test whether this technology-supported model can reproduce those results across a significantly larger portion of El Salvador’s public education system.