Speaking of school and holidays, let's waste no further time in getting onto our first topic of conversation for today, which is AI in education. And we received an article this week by doctor Nix McLain called behind the Hype,
Why Africa must lead its own AI revolution. Artificial intelligence is rapidly entering African higher education, often through tools developed in the West, and doctor Nix McLain argues that while AI offers potential benefits, it's unchecked adoption risks reinforcing outdated stereotypes and ignoring African contexts because, of course, we know that AI is largely evolving in the global North and being influenced from culture in that part of the world.
Joining us now via zoom to explain more about this is doctor Nix McClain. Thanks so much for joining us on this very early Saturday morning. Next and good morning to you.
Good morning, Amy, Thanks so much for the invite. Yeah, it is very very early, but I'm very happy to be awaken in conversation with you today.
Well, thank you. I think this is such an important conversation as a parent of a high school child and potentially looking at going into tertiary education because it is no doubt in my mind that AI must be having a great impact on the education system.
It is. I mean it was an absolute disruptor. I mean that twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four moment where chat ept open AI flooded the market and the uptake. I mean that was an incredible disruptor. We saw that in our assessments and I'm sure it wasn't only just in tertiary secondary, probably primary as well. And it has certainly changed the way we do educational and think about it.
And next, before we go into looking at Africa specifically, do you not think that the education system as a whole is perhaps outdated now with this disruption coming from AI.
I think many industries are nut dated, not with this disruption. I think what we're needing to do is what the disruption has done is it's forced us to think about whether we're relevant, are we agile enough? And that applies to the education sector, many industries, and I think there's something positive in that disruption for all of us.
Now, you work for an organization called Edge of Fast, do you want to tell our listeners a little bit about the work that you do?
Absolutely so, each of us is one of the fastest growing private high education institutions in South Africa. We have twelve campuses twenty thousand students across the country, so we're an a credible growth spirit at the moment. And I'm head of research and postgraduate Studies for Edge of US. So one of my key areas is to do an environmental scan of what's happening out there in the world, stay on top of it, and to feed that information
back into the organization. And one of the things that I care about most in the world and my own personal research is in ethics of care as relates to technology.
Sure, you must have a very big job in that case, because you know you're scanning the developments, etc. And it's all just happening so quickly and evolving at such a rapid rate.
Yeah, but I've got an incredible team that I work with my colleagues. We're in essence a fantastic community of practice, so we're all open to new changes. We feed that information back to each other. We have often sessions called best practice Fridays where we are constantly learning from each other.
So yeah, I mean, and that I think just speaks to the kind of mindset we need at this moment of disruption is really a growth mindset, being open to learning and looking for approaching life for the lifelong learning mindset.
I'm in conversation with doctor Nix McLain, head of research and postgraduate studies at EDGE for US, and we're just talking about AI in education, particularly with a focus on Africa because that's where we live. Next, tell us why you've written in this article that Africa must lead its AI revolution.
Well, one of the first things I thought of, you know, in that twenty twenty three twenty twenty four moment, and then we well entered into conversation with colleagues around was you know, this technology is fantastic, it's it's really interesting. I'm curious about it. But where where's the data set coming from? And why are the outputs looking in the
way that they do. So the content is often from a US perspective, US examples pulling from US media, but we weren't seeing outputs from local contexts, let alone regional contexts. And that immediately sparked something. As I mentioned earlier, I'm in ethics of k or the unintended consequence of technology, and I wondered what if I was feeling this way, how our students may be feeling if they weren't seeing themselves represented in the outputs.
So I mean it's difficult because how does one then begin to Africanize so to speak AI.
I think the place to start is to ask those critical questions. So we developed a technocritical framework. So often when new technology and smarket, it doesn't matter if it's it's AI. For instance, we saw that with TV. I mean I say that as if I was around with the advent of TV. But there's a technological pessimism that occurs, where it's an outright rejection of the technology or optimism
which is just this unquestioning adoption of technology. And what we said was we need to take that middle line, which is a techno realist actually, but we added critical theory, which asks the questions around power, whose data are we using? Yeah, whose voice is present here? Whose voice is missing here? And what do we need to do to shift that? So it's a long journey, but I do think when we start asking those questions and we we enter into reflexive dialogue around it. So you know, why are we
using this technology? Who else should be here with us? Who should be involved? In the development, we start to shifting in.
What sort of practical ways is AI being used in our education sector at the moment.
So other than in terms of assessments, which is the primary space we see it, and with the students who may use AI to generate their essays, for instance, it may be used in content generations, so for less in outlines or lesson content, and so we've got to think very very carefully there then, like why are you using
this particular tool? And so we encourage the use of AI, but we're also saying, if you're going to use AI, please ensure that your prompts are advanced and complex enough to try and generate content that is a reflexive ortive sorry of our contexts, and then to also critically analyze that content to ensure that it does speak back to our lived experiences, our lived reality.
Next, you mentioned when I asked you about your role that you've got a particular interest in the ethics of care. How does that even play into AI.
So ethics of cares slightly more so, you know, you have research ethics, which is about do no harm insure justice. With the outcome of research, ethics of care takes us one step further, it asks about positionality, So that's about who am I in the world, or what is this technology in the world, Who's made it, what the power structures under it, underneath it, informing it, and you know, as a result, what occurs due to the use of
the technology. It also talks about standpoint, which is how I really came into the space, which is I maybe situation in this context. So I'm in Africa, I'm in South Africa, I'm in high education, and I'm not seeing my reality reflected back to me. So what does that mean for a student? So in ethics, care really is about asking those questions around power and asking for reflexivity, so thinking about why do we use things in the way that we do.
You recently spoke at the SARIA conference. I don't know if I've pronounced that correctly, but basically it's the Southern African Regional Universities Association. And what was that conference about? And who were some of the people that were gathered there.
So that was a regional conference bringing together universities across the region to be in conversation around transformation and high education. And I was speaking there to our technocritical framework and talking about how we can think about AI in the
future for access. So you know, some of the work we do as a prior education institution is we look at research for real world impact, and so we're really concerned with the sustainable development goals, particular standable development role for which is put quality education, and so AI can be used to enable access to quality education. But what we were challenging is that we've got to think about
the kind of content. So, you know, I want to often talk about personalized learning analytics, which is one of the most exciting spaces for AI, but we can't yet go there until we get technology right because a student's learning maybe, you know, we may accept that a student may be struggling, but the analytics, the tools that we use need to be contextualized in order to really do justice to the student.
The reason I asked you that question is just because I'm wondering whether there is enough education about AI in education. I know that sounds a bit silly, but you know, our is the information trickling down far enough. Our teachers, for instance, on the ground at a primary school in a low income area in Cape Town, being fed the right information about AI and how to use it. Safely and properly and correctly.
That's an excellent question. I think that where we've still got a long way to go. You know, in the last year, year and a half, what I've seen is a fear based response to AI. People are very quick to head towards policy, which to me always indicates over governance and not necessarily a curiosity. So we for instance, I know this is a primary school primary education question, but you know, if we think about kind of how
Age of US has responded. We went for guidelines so that it's this living, breathing document where we're constantly adapting with the technology and indicating let's be careful, let's be curious. And I worry that at primary and secondary level, that
especially in space where there is the digital divide. You know, we have matters around digital literacy and digital fluency, which is something we're not talking about as well, that educators aren't receiving the information that they need and I instead receiving a fear based response which will not serve students in the future.
Next Unfortunately, we're out of time, but if people would like to get in touch with Edge of Us or find out more about the work that you do, can you let them know what the best way to do so it would be.
Absolutely so they can send me an email directly, So NYX dot McLaren m c l e A n at edge of us dot com or have look at our website edgebus dot com.
Thank you so much for your time on the Saturday morning. I hope you're able to go and jump back into bed or spend the rest of the morning doing something super fun.
It's a day for adventure, So thank you very much, Amie. Have an excellent morning and thanks for the conversation you two.
Thank you so much. Next Doctor next Claim recently presented AI Enabled Access to Quality Education, a case study of digital transformation at a South African private HI at the regional conference. We spoke about the SARUA conference