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

by Etta Patrick (2025-02-09)

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Expert System (AI) is changing education while making discovering more accessible but likewise triggering arguments on its effect.


While trainees hail AI tools like ChatGPT for enhancing their learning experience, lecturers are raising issues about the growing reliance on AI, which they argue fosters laziness and undermines scholastic stability, especially with many students not able to safeguard their assignments or offered works.


Prof. Isaac Nwaogwugwu, a speaker at the University of Lagos, in an interview with Nairametrics, revealed aggravation over the growing reliance on AI-generated actions among trainees recounting a recent experience he had.


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"I gave an assignment to my MBA students, and out of over 100 trainees, about 40% sent the precise very same answers. These students did not even know each other, but they all used the same AI tool to create their reactions," he said.


He kept in mind that this pattern is prevalent amongst both undergraduate and postgraduate trainees however is especially worrying in part-time and range learning programs.


"AI is a serious challenge when it pertains to projects. Many trainees no longer think critically-they simply browse the web, generate responses, and submit," he added.


Surprisingly, some speakers are likewise implicated of over-relying on AI, setting a cycle where both teachers and trainees turn to AI for convenience instead of intellectual rigor.


This dispute raises vital questions about the role of AI in scholastic stability and student development.


According to a UNESCO report, while ChatGPT reached 100 million monthly active users in January 2023, only one country had actually released guidelines on generative AI since July 2023.


Since December 2024, ChatGPT had over 300 million individuals using the AI chatbot each week and 1 billion messages sent every day worldwide.


Decline of scholastic rigor


University lecturers are significantly worried about trainees submitting AI-generated tasks without really understanding the material.


Dr. Felix Echekoba, a speaker at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, revealed his issues to Nairametrics about trainees increasingly depending on ChatGPT, just to battle with answering basic questions when evaluated.

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"Many students copy from ChatGPT and submit polished tasks, however when asked standard concerns, they go blank. It's disappointing since education has to do with finding out, not just passing courses," he said.


- Prof. Nwaogwugwu mentioned that the increasing number of first-class graduates can not be completely associated to AI but confessed that even high-performing students utilize these tools.


"A superior trainee is a superior student, AI or not, however that doesn't indicate they do not cheat. The benefits of AI may be peripheral, however it is making trainees dependent and less analytical," he said.


- Another lecturer, mediawiki.hcah.in Dr. Ereke, from Ebonyi State University, raised a various concern that some lecturers themselves are guilty of the same practice.


"It's not just trainees using AI slackly. Some lecturers, out of their own laziness, create lesson notes, course details, marking plans, and even exam questions with AI without examining them. Students in turn use AI to produce answers. It's a cycle of laziness and it is killing real knowing," he regreted.


Students' viewpoints on use


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


- Eniola Arowosafe, a 300-level Business Administration trainee at Unilag, engel-und-waisen.de shared how AI has considerably aided her knowing by breaking down complex terms and providing summaries of prolonged texts.


"AI assisted me understand things more easily, particularly when dealing with intricate subjects," she discussed.


However, she remembered a circumstances when she used AI to submit her task, only for her speaker to instantly acknowledge that it was produced by ChatGPT and decline it. Eniola noted that it was a good-bad result.


- Bryan Okwuba, who just recently finished with a superior degree in Pharmacy Technology from the University of Lagos, strongly thinks that his scholastic success wasn't due to any AI tool. He associates his outstanding grades to actively appealing by asking questions and concentrating on areas that lecturers stress in class, as they are frequently shown in test concerns.


"It's everything about existing, paying attention, and tapping into the wealth of understanding shared by my coworkers," he said,


- Tunde Awoshita, a final-year marketing trainee at UNIZIK, confesses to sometimes copying directly from ChatGPT when facing several deadlines.


"To be honest, there are times I copy directly from ChatGPT when I have multiple deadlines, and I know I'm guilty of that, a lot of times the lecturers do not get to check out them, however AI has also helped me find out faster."


Balancing AI's role in education


Experts believe the solution lies in AI literacy; mentor trainees and speakers how to utilize AI as a knowing help rather than a shortcut.


- Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, highlighted the integration of AI into Nigeria's education system, worrying the significance of a well balanced approach that maintains human involvement while harnessing AI to improve learning outcomes.


"As we browse the quickly evolving landscape of Artificial Intelligence (AI), it is crucial that we prioritise human agency in education. We need to guarantee that AI improves, rather than replaces, teachers' crucial function in forming young minds," he stated


Concerns over AI in Learning


Dorcas Akintade, a cybersecurity change professional, dealt with growing issues regarding using artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT and their potential dangers to the academic system.


- She acknowledged the benefits of AI, however, highlighted the requirement for caution in its use.

- Akintade highlighted the increasing hesitance among teachers and schools toward incorporating AI tools in finding out environments. She recognized two main reasons AI tools are discouraged in instructional settings: security risks and plagiarism. She discussed that AI tools like ChatGPT are trained to respond based upon user interactions, which may not line up with the expectations of educators.


"It is not looking at it as a tutor," Akintade said, describing that AI does not accommodate particular teaching techniques.


Plagiarism is another problem, akropolistravel.com as AI pulls from existing information, frequently without appropriate attribution


"A great deal of individuals need to understand, like I said, this is data that has actually been trained on. It is not simply bringing things out from the sky. It's bringing details that some other people are fed into it, which in essence indicates that is another individual's paperwork," she warned.


- Additionally, Akintade highlighted an early concern in AI advancement known as "hallucination," where AI tools would generate information that was not accurate.


"Hallucination implied that it was bringing out info from the air. If ChatGPT might not get that details from you, it was going to make one up," she explained.

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She suggested "grounding" AI by supplying it with specific information to avoid such mistakes.


Navigating AI in Education


Akintade argued that banning AI tools outright is not the service, particularly when AI provides an opportunity to leapfrog traditional educational techniques.

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- She believes that consistently reinforcing essential information assists people keep in mind and prevent making errors when faced with obstacles.


"Immersion brings conversion. When you tell people the very same thing over and over once again, when they are about to make the errors, then they'll keep in mind."


She likewise empasized the need for clear policies and treatments within schools, keeping in mind that lots of schools ought to attend to the people and procedure elements of this usage.


- Prof. Nwaogwugwu has resorted to in-class assignments and tests to counter AI-driven scholastic dishonesty.


"Now, I generally utilize projects to make sure trainees offer initial work." However, he acknowledged that managing big classes makes this approach difficult.


"If you set intricate concerns, trainees won't be able to utilize AI to get direct responses," he explained.


He stressed the requirement for universities to train speakers on crafting examination questions that AI can not easily fix while acknowledging that some speakers struggle to counter AI misuse due to an absence 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 privacy at its core.

- UNESCO in a report calls for the policy of AI in education, recommending organizations to investigate algorithms, data, and outputs of generative AI tools to ensure they fulfill ethical requirements, secure user information, and filter improper content.

- It stresses the need to evaluate the long-lasting impact of AI on important abilities like believing and wiki.vst.hs-furtwangen.de creativity while producing policies that line up with ethical frameworks. Additionally, UNESCO recommends carrying out age constraints for GenAI use to secure younger trainees and safeguard susceptible groups.
- For federal governments, it encouraged adopting a coordinated national approach to regulating GenAI, including establishing oversight bodies and lining up regulations with existing data defense and honkaistarrail.wiki privacy laws. It emphasizes assessing AI risks, imposing more stringent rules for high-risk applications, and making sure national data ownership.



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