AI Literacy for Teachers: An Ethical Imperative

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly influencing lesson planning, learning support, assessment, and teachers’ professional work. These possibilities also create concerns involving accuracy, bias, privacy, transparency, academic integrity, inclusion, and overdependence on automated systems. This review discusses AI literacy as a professional and ethical competency for teachers. It uses a narrative review approach, drawing on selected scholarship on AI in education, AI literacy, and international guidance for teachers. The discussion is organised around the meaning of AI literacy, its pedagogical value, major ethical concerns, and implications for teacher education. The literature indicates that responsible AI use requires more than operational familiarity with digital tools: teachers need to understand the limits of AI outputs, check information against reliable sources, protect learners’ data, identify possible bias, and make context-sensitive decisions about when AI is appropriate. International guidance also emphasises human agency, ethics, AI foundations, AI pedagogy, and professional learning as connected dimensions of teacher competence. Accordingly, teacher education should combine practical experimentation with case-based ethical discussion, assessment redesign, privacy awareness, and continuing professional development. This paper argues that AI should support rather than replace teachers’ professional judgement and relationships with learners. As a narrative review, it does not report original survey data or claim to provide an exhaustive systematic review. It concludes with recommendations for integrating AI literacy into pre-service and in-service teacher education.