Nigerian Students Turn to aI For Tests Answers, Lecturers Raise Alarm
Expert System (AI) is changing education while making finding out more accessible however likewise stimulating debates on its impact.
While students hail AI tools like ChatGPT for enhancing their learning experience, lecturers are raising concerns about the growing reliance on AI, which they argue fosters laziness and weakens academic stability, specifically with many trainees not able to protect their projects or offered works.
Prof. Isaac Nwaogwugwu, a lecturer at the University of Lagos, in an interview with Nairametrics, revealed aggravation over the growing dependence on AI-generated actions among students recounting a recent experience he had.
RelatedStories
Avoid sharing individual details that can identify you with AI tools- Expert cautions
Chinese AI app DeepSeek stimulates international tech selloff, obstacles U.S. AI dominance
"I offered a task to my MBA trainees, and out of over 100 trainees, about 40% submitted the exact very same answers. These students did not even know each other, but they all utilized the exact same AI tool to produce their actions," he stated.
He noted that this pattern is widespread amongst both undergraduate and postgraduate trainees however is specifically concerning in part-time and distance knowing programs.
"AI is a serious obstacle when it concerns assignments. Many students no longer think critically-they simply go on the internet, generate responses, and submit," he included.
Surprisingly, some lecturers are also implicated of over-relying on AI, setting a cycle where both teachers and oke.zone students turn to AI for convenience rather than intellectual rigor.
This dispute raises crucial questions about the role of AI in academic stability and student development.
According to a UNESCO report, while ChatGPT reached 100 million month-to-month active users in January 2023, just one country had actually released guidelines on generative AI as of July 2023.
As of December 2024, ChatGPT had more than 300 million people using the AI chatbot weekly and 1 billion messages sent every day all over the world.
Decline of scholastic rigor
University lecturers are increasingly concerned about trainees sending AI-generated tasks without genuinely understanding the content.
Dr. Felix Echekoba, a speaker at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, expressed his issues to Nairametrics about students increasingly relying on ChatGPT, only to battle with responding to fundamental concerns when checked.
"Many trainees copy from ChatGPT and send sleek projects, but when asked basic questions, they go blank. It's disappointing because education has to do with learning, not just passing courses," he stated.
- Prof. Nwaogwugwu pointed out that the increasing number of top-notch graduates can not be entirely associated to AI but admitted that even high-performing students use these tools.
"A first-rate student is a top-notch student, AI or not, however that doesn't imply they do not cheat. The benefits of AI might be peripheral, but it is making trainees dependent and less analytical," he stated.
- Another lecturer, Dr. Ereke, from Ebonyi State University, raised a different concern that some speakers themselves are guilty of the same practice.
"It's not just students using AI lazily. Some lecturers, out of their own laziness, create lesson notes, course describes, marking schemes, and even exam concerns with AI without reviewing them. Students in turn utilize AI to generate responses. It's a cycle of laziness and it is eliminating real learning," he lamented.
Students' point of views on use
Students, on the other hand, state AI has improved their learning experience by making academic products more easy to understand and available.
- Eniola Arowosafe, a 300-level Business Administration student at Unilag, shared how AI has actually substantially aided her knowing by breaking down complex terms and yewiki.org offering summaries of lengthy texts.
"AI assisted me understand things more easily, especially when handling complex subjects," she explained.
However, she remembered a circumstances when she used AI to submit her task, only for her speaker to right away acknowledge that it was produced by ChatGPT and decline it. Eniola noted that it was a good-bad impact.
- Bryan Okwuba, who just recently finished with a first-class degree in Pharmacy Technology from the University of Lagos, firmly thinks that his scholastic success wasn't due to any AI tool. He associates his impressive grades to actively interesting by asking concerns and focusing on areas that speakers emphasize in class, as they are frequently shown in .
"It's everything about existing, focusing, and using the wealth of knowledge shared by my associates," he stated,
- Tunde Awoshita, a final-year marketing trainee at UNIZIK, confesses to periodically copying straight from ChatGPT when dealing with several deadlines.
"To be honest, there are times I copy directly from ChatGPT when I have numerous due dates, and I know I'm guilty of that, a lot of times the speakers do not get to go through them, however AI has actually also helped me discover much faster."
Balancing AI's function in education
Experts believe the option depends on AI literacy; mentor trainees and speakers how to use AI as a knowing help rather than a faster way.
- Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, photorum.eclat-mauve.fr highlighted the combination of AI into Nigeria's education system, worrying the significance of a well balanced approach that preserves human participation while utilizing AI to improve finding out outcomes.
"As we browse the quickly evolving landscape of Expert system (AI), it is important that we prioritise human company in education. We need to ensure that AI improves, instead of changes, educators' vital role in forming young minds," he stated
Concerns over AI in Learning
Dorcas Akintade, a cybersecurity transformation professional, attended to growing issues regarding using expert system (AI) tools such as ChatGPT and their potential risks to the instructional system.
- She acknowledged the advantages of AI, however, emphasized the requirement for care in its use.
- Akintade highlighted the increasing hesitance among educators and schools toward integrating AI tools in discovering environments. She identified two primary reasons that AI tools are dissuaded in academic settings: security risks and etymologiewebsite.nl plagiarism. She discussed that AI tools like ChatGPT are trained to react based on user interactions, yewiki.org which might not align with the expectations of educators.
"It is not taking a look at it as a tutor," Akintade said, discussing that AI doesn't cater to specific mentor techniques.
Plagiarism is another concern, as AI pulls from existing data, frequently without proper attribution
"A lot of people need to understand, like I stated, this is data that has actually been trained on. It is not simply bringing things out from the sky. It's bringing info that some other individuals are fed into it, which in essence means that is another individual's documentation," she cautioned.
- Additionally, Akintade highlighted an early issue in AI advancement called "hallucination," where AI tools would create info that was not factual.
"Hallucination suggested that it was drawing out info from the air. If ChatGPT might not get that information from you, it was going to make one up," she described.
She advised "grounding" AI by offering it with specific information to prevent such errors.
Navigating AI in Education
Akintade argued that banning AI tools outright is not the solution, especially when AI presents a chance to leapfrog conventional instructional techniques.
- She believes that consistently enhancing essential info helps individuals remember and prevent making errors when confronted with difficulties.
"Immersion brings conversion. When you inform people the very same thing over and over again, when they will make the mistakes, then they'll remember."
She likewise empasized the need for clear policies and procedures within schools, keeping in mind that many schools should attend to individuals and process elements of this usage.
- Prof. Nwaogwugwu has resorted to in-class assignments and tests to counter AI-driven scholastic dishonesty.
"Now, I generally use assignments to make sure students supply original work." However, he acknowledged that handling big classes makes this approach difficult.
"If you set intricate questions, students will not have the ability to utilize AI to get direct answers," he discussed.
He stressed the requirement for universities to train lecturers on crafting test concerns that AI can not quickly resolve while acknowledging that some lecturers battle to counter AI abuse due to a lack of technological awareness. "Some lecturers are analogue," he stated.
- Nigeria released a draft National AI Strategy in August 2024, concentrating on ethical AI advancement with fairness, transparency, responsibility, and personal privacy at its core.
- UNESCO in a report requires the policy of AI in education, advising organizations to investigate algorithms, data, and outputs of generative AI tools to guarantee they satisfy ethical standards, secure user data, and filter improper content.
- It worries the requirement to assess the long-lasting effect of AI on crucial skills like thinking and imagination while developing policies that line up with ethical structures. Additionally, UNESCO recommends implementing age constraints for GenAI usage to secure younger trainees and secure susceptible groups.
- For governments, it recommended adopting a collaborated nationwide approach to controling GenAI, consisting of developing oversight bodies and users.atw.hu lining up policies with existing information protection and personal privacy laws. It emphasizes assessing AI dangers, enforcing more stringent guidelines for high-risk applications, and making sure national data ownership.