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Nigerian Students Turn to aI For Tests Answers, Lecturers Raise Alarm

Expert System (AI) is transforming education while making discovering more accessible but also sparking arguments on its impact.

While students hail AI tools like ChatGPT for boosting their learning experience, speakers are raising issues about the growing reliance on AI, which they argue fosters laziness and weakens academic integrity, specifically with lots of students unable to defend their tasks or provided works.

Prof. Isaac Nwaogwugwu, a speaker at the University of Lagos, in an interview with Nairametrics, expressed aggravation over the growing reliance on AI-generated responses amongst students recounting a recent experience he had.

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“I gave a project to my MBA students, and out of over 100 students, about 40% sent the precise very same answers. These trainees did not even understand each other, however they all used the exact same AI tool to create their reactions,” he stated.

He kept in mind that this trend is widespread among both undergraduate and postgraduate trainees but is especially concerning in part-time and range knowing programs.

“AI is a major difficulty when it concerns assignments. Many trainees no longer believe critically-they simply browse the web, produce responses, and send,” he added.

Surprisingly, some speakers are likewise accused of over-relying on AI, setting a cycle where both educators and students turn to AI for benefit instead of intellectual rigor.

This argument raises vital questions about the role of AI in scholastic stability and student advancement.

According to a UNESCO report, while ChatGPT reached 100 million monthly active users in January 2023, only one nation had actually released regulations on generative AI as of July 2023.

Since December 2024, ChatGPT had more than 300 million individuals using the AI chatbot every week and 1 billion messages sent every day all over the world.

Decline of scholastic rigor

University lecturers are progressively worried about students submitting AI-generated assignments without truly comprehending the material.

Dr. Felix Echekoba, chessdatabase.science a lecturer at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, revealed his issues to Nairametrics about trainees progressively depending on ChatGPT, just to deal with addressing basic questions when evaluated.

“Many students copy from ChatGPT and send sleek tasks, however when asked basic questions, they go blank. It’s disappointing due to the fact that education is about discovering, not just passing courses,” he said.

– Prof. Nwaogwugwu explained that the increasing variety of first-class graduates can not be entirely credited to AI however confessed that even high-performing students use these tools.

“A first-rate trainee is a first-rate trainee, AI or not, but that doesn’t indicate they do not cheat. The advantages of AI may be peripheral, but it is making trainees dependent and less analytical,” he said.

– Another speaker, Dr. Ereke, from Ebonyi State University, raised a different concern that some speakers themselves are guilty of the exact same practice.

“It’s not simply trainees utilizing AI lazily. Some lecturers, out of their own laziness, generate lesson notes, course outlines, marking schemes, and even test questions with AI without evaluating them. Students in turn use AI to generate responses. It’s a cycle of laziness and it is killing real learning,” he lamented.

Students’ point of views on use

Students, on the other hand, say AI has improved their learning experience by making scholastic products more easy to understand and available.

– Eniola Arowosafe, a 300-level Business Administration trainee at Unilag, shared how AI has actually considerably helped her knowing by breaking down complex terms and supplying summaries of lengthy texts.

“AI helped me understand things more quickly, specifically when dealing with intricate topics,” she described.

However, she remembered an instance when she utilized AI to send her project, just for her speaker to immediately acknowledge that it was generated by ChatGPT and reject it. Eniola noted that it was a good-bad impact.

– Bryan Okwuba, who just recently finished with a first-rate degree in Pharmacy Technology from the University of Lagos, securely thinks that his scholastic success wasn’t due to any AI tool. He attributes his outstanding grades to actively engaging by asking questions and focusing on areas that lecturers emphasize in class, as they are often shown in examination concerns.

“It’s everything about existing, focusing, and tapping into the wealth of understanding shared by my coworkers,” he said,

– Tunde Awoshita, a final-year marketing trainee at UNIZIK, confesses to periodically copying straight from ChatGPT when dealing with several due dates.

“To be sincere, there are times I copy straight from ChatGPT when I have numerous due dates, and I understand I’m guilty of that, many times the lecturers do not get to go through them, however AI has actually also helped me discover faster.”

Balancing AI‘s role in education

Experts think the service depends on AI literacy; mentor students and lecturers how to use AI as a learning aid instead of a faster way.

– Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, highlighted the combination of AI into Nigeria’s education system, stressing the importance of a well balanced approach that keeps human involvement while harnessing AI to enhance discovering outcomes.

“As we browse the rapidly developing landscape of Artificial Intelligence (AI), it is vital that we prioritise human agency in education. We must guarantee that AI enhances, rather than changes, educators’ essential role in forming young minds,” he said

Concerns over AI in Learning

Dorcas Akintade, a cybersecurity improvement specialist, attended to growing concerns regarding using synthetic intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT and their potential dangers to the instructional system.

– She acknowledged the advantages of AI, however, stressed the need for caution in its usage.

– Akintade highlighted the increasing resistance among teachers and schools toward integrating AI tools in finding out . She recognized two main reasons AI tools are prevented in educational settings: security risks and plagiarism. She explained that AI tools like ChatGPT are trained to respond based upon user interactions, which may not align with the expectations of teachers.

“It is not taking a look at it as a tutor,” Akintade said, describing that AI doesn’t deal with specific teaching techniques.

Plagiarism is another issue, as AI pulls from existing information, typically without appropriate attribution

“A lot of people need to comprehend, like I stated, this is information that has been trained on. It is not simply bringing things out from the sky. It’s bringing information that some other people are fed into it, which in essence means that is another person’s paperwork,” she cautioned.

– Additionally, Akintade highlighted an early concern in AI advancement understood as “hallucination,” where AI tools would create details that was not accurate.

“Hallucination suggested that it was drawing out information from the air. If ChatGPT might not get that details from you, it was going to make one up,” she explained.

She suggested “grounding” AI by offering it with specific details to prevent such errors.

Navigating AI in Education

Akintade argued that banning AI tools outright is not the solution, especially when AI provides an opportunity to leapfrog traditional academic methods.

– She thinks that consistently reinforcing crucial info helps individuals remember and prevent making mistakes when confronted with difficulties.

“Immersion brings conversion. When you tell individuals the same thing over and over once again, when they will make the errors, then they’ll remember.”

She also empasized the need for clear policies and treatments within schools, keeping in mind that numerous schools should attend to the people and process aspects of this usage.

– Prof. Nwaogwugwu has actually resorted to in-class tasks and drapia.org tests to counter AI-driven academic dishonesty.

“Now, I generally use tasks to ensure students supply original work.” However, he acknowledged that handling big classes makes this approach tough.

“If you set intricate questions, trainees won’t have the ability to use AI to get direct responses,” he explained.

He highlighted the requirement for universities to train lecturers on crafting examination concerns that AI can not quickly solve while acknowledging that some speakers struggle to counter AI misuse due to a lack of technological awareness. “Some lecturers are analogue,” he said.

– Nigeria launched a draft National AI Strategy in August 2024, concentrating on ethical AI development with fairness, transparency, responsibility, and privacy at its core.

– UNESCO in a report calls for prawattasao.awardspace.info the regulation of AI in education, advising organizations to examine algorithms, information, and outputs of generative AI tools to guarantee they meet ethical standards, safeguard user data, and filter unsuitable material.

– It worries the need to evaluate the long-term effect of AI on important skills like believing and imagination while developing policies that align with ethical structures. Additionally, UNESCO recommends implementing age restrictions for GenAI usage to secure more youthful students and secure vulnerable groups.
– For governments, it encouraged adopting a coordinated nationwide approach to regulating GenAI, consisting of developing oversight bodies and aligning policies with existing information protection and personal privacy laws. It emphasizes examining AI threats, imposing stricter rules for high-risk applications, and ensuring nationwide data ownership.