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Education, from an individualistic perspective is essential within personal growth and the attainment of a better societal position, but it is also a milestone for national development.

While rich countries concerned the students’ high exposure to digital devices, other parts of the world struggle with insufficient technological developments and infrastructures for student education. Will AI become the key to bridging this gap?

As the fear of AI has grown, so too has its immense potential across diverse sectors including education. If well-utilized, AI could provide quality educational opportunities to a broader population especially in developing countries. This post will primarily explore cases from Sub-Saharan African countries (SSA).

Among global tertiary enrollment rates, only 4% of students are from SSA countries. Although there has been an increase in the number of pupils from primary to tertiary schools in recent years in these countries, chronic problems still hinder educational growth. Moreover, the report indicates that national finances and individual household wealth and cultural factors, contribute significantly to educational integrity.

According to the recent data from UNESCO, SSA are facing a shortfall of 15 million teachers. This shortage continuously erodes the satisfaction levels of both teachers and students. Such shortages are recognized as a global phenomena, in which why the discussion of AI as a tool to relieve teachers from repetitive tasks is continuously on the rise. Amidst ongoing controversies about whether to ban or integrate AI in student education, the growing influence of AI is leaning towards decisions to “teach with it.” Following this trend could boost the educational quality of SSA, provided that the countries are able to adopt and utilize strengths of AI in their education sectors.

Plagiarisms, loss of creativity, and overdependency lays other concerns, but albeit such shortcomings, the AI have its potential to be one of the most efficient ways in response to teacher shortages, and furthermore in contributing to the higher number of students engaged in tertiary education.

The failure of OLPC and criticisms regarding dominancy of the global north’s in AI narratives underscores the need for field level approaches. The technologies from open AI could be seen more innovative for those who have been directly or indirectly exposed to AI services in their lifetime, but people with no AI experience may unable to tell how such technologies are different from the past, making it question whether they are able to fully utilize and earn benefits from it. Filling such gaps should come in advance, before or along with the implementation of any programs like OPLC.

Some of the tertiary institutions are coming up with AI courses, and having more local graduates with AI degrees are a positive sign in terms of strengthening their own power to proceed AI technologies suitable to their own circumstances. If there are any corporations or schools and universities able to offer services that can enhance the quality of AI classes in universities in SSA, this would be a good starting point to help the countries create a stable base prior to AI implementation.

[Yeon Kim’s SDGs, ESG, CSR] [2023]. All rights reserved.

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