NAIROBI, Kenya- Kenyan lecturers are calling for an urgent overhaul of higher education infrastructure to seamlessly integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into classrooms and research settings.
This call to action emerged from a workshop organized by the Microsoft Africa Development Centre (ADC) in collaboration with the Kenya Education Network (KENET), aimed at exploring AI’s potential to revolutionize teaching, learning, and research.
Catherine Muraga, Managing Director of Microsoft ADC, highlighted the significance of AI in modernizing education during the event.
She stressed the necessity of robust private-private and public-private partnerships to bridge existing infrastructure gaps.
“One of the most important considerations for universities is the availability of infrastructure for collecting and storing local data, which can then be used to train AI models for use in education and research,” she stated.
“The government, which can provide significant assistance in areas such as technology-related skilling, is one of the larger players that must also be engaged,” she added.
This sentiment was echoed by KENET executive director, Prof. Meoli Kashorda, who praised universities for their advancements in AI infrastructure but called for further funding and innovation to bolster AI capacity in academia.
“AI tools are already being used by some students and lecturers. At this point, we must consider how AI can be made available to everyone in higher education. The challenge is that it demands more AI infrastructure, which requires significant resources. We need huge investments in AI infrastructure so we can start to apply it in research at scale,” Kashorda added.
The workshop delved into four critical themes: the necessity of AI skill development, enhancing pedagogy through research, the role of AI in research, and infrastructure needs to accelerate AI adoption.
Additionally, discussions highlighted the importance of responsible AI development that promotes inclusivity.
Experts advocated for substantial investments in collecting, sorting, storing, and processing datasets from African contexts, emphasizing the need for policies and guidelines to govern AI use in educational institutions.
According to Prof. Kashorda, “As KENET, we have provided funding to develop case studies on the use of AI in teaching computer science. This will be expanded to demonstrate the power of AI in other disciplines. We believe that these case studies will help convert the opinions of higher education leaders into policies promoting AI adoption in universities.”
