According to South Korea's etnews, the country has announced plans to invest in a so-called "R-Learning" program that promises to put robotic teaching assistants in up to 500 pre-schools by 2012 just after a few months of trials, and expand to a full 8,000 pre-schools and kindergartens the following year.

The robots are being used to teach English in the absence of qualified personnel. Some of the bots are completely automated using speech recognition software, while others are telepresence robots allowing humans to teach over long distances. Some of the robots developed by KIST are currently undergoing trials in South Korean classrooms. Some of the robots, like Sil-bot, have been modified to become telepresence robots for distance-teaching. Yujin Robot’s iRobiQ is also being tested.

Although the kids say that the robot teachers are “easy and fun”, things aren’t really that perfect. “Already you can see students getting a bit bored of the songs from their lessons, since the robots aren’t programmed with the latest hits,” says one source.

Source: roboticstechnologycenter.com