Exploring the potential of AI for teaching and learning in East Africa

As part of the next phase of our Transforming Employability for Social Change in East Africa initiative, INASP and the Inter-University Council for East Africa co-hosted a short online event on 26 July to explore the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to improve teaching and learning in East Africa.

The event featured contributions from Jon Harle (INASP Director of Programmes), Professor Gaspard Banyankimbona (Executive Secretary of the Inter-University Council for East Africa), Dr Albert Luswata (Uganda Martyrs University), Dr Kendi Muchungi (INASP Associate and Aga Khan University) and Ranj Majumdar (senior advisor to INASP), with brief remarks from Rose Wanjiku Ndegwa, on behalf of Darius Mogaka Ogutu (Director for University Education, Ministry of Education, Kenya).

While acknowledging the significant concerns around AI, including bias and exclusion, and the need for new regulation and effective guardrails, we chose to focus specifically on possible practical use cases in teaching and learning. We wanted to avoid an abstract discussion, and to use a practical exploration of specific uses to assist participants to build understanding and familiarity. The event included a discussion on broader issues facing lecturers and their students in East Africa, followed by a live demonstration of one tool - ChatGPT - to show how it could be used to address some of those challenges.

We hosted an event on leveraging AI to advance early career research in East Africa in December 2023. See the report here. 

Image credit: Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash