NewStats: 3,263,722 , 8,181,157 topics. Date: Saturday, 07 June 2025 at 02:36 PM 39ua

Academics raise concerns over declining standards as students increasingly rely on AI in Nigeria

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing education while making learning more accessible but also sparking debates on its impact.

While students hail AI tools like ChatGPT for enhancing their learning experience, lecturers are raising concerns about the growing dependence on AI, which they argue fosters laziness and undermines academic integrity, especially with many students unable to defend their assignments or given works.

Prof. Isaac Nwaogwugwu, a lecturer at the University of Lagos, in an interview with Nairametrics, expressed frustration over the growing reliance on AI-generated responses among students recounting a recent experience he had.


“I gave an assignment to my MBA students, and out of over 100 students, about 40% submitted the exact same answers. These students did not even know each other, but they all used the same AI tool to generate their responses,” he said.

He noted that this trend is prevalent among both undergraduate and postgraduate students but is especially concerning in part-time and distance learning programs.

“AI is a serious challenge when it comes to assignments. Many students no longer think critically—they just go online, generate answers, and submit,” he added.

Surprisingly, some lecturers are also accused of over-relying on AI, setting a cycle where both educators and students turn to AI for convenience rather than intellectual rigor.

This debate raises critical questions about the role of AI in academic integrity and student development.

According to a UNESCO report, while ChatGPT reached 100 million monthly active s in January 2023, only one country had released regulations on generative AI as of July 2023.

As of December 2024, ChatGPT had over 300 million people using the AI chatbot each week and 1 billion messages sent every day around the world.

Decline of academic rigor
University lecturers are increasingly concerned about students submitting AI-generated assignments without truly understanding the content.

Dr. Felix Echekoba, a lecturer at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, expressed his concerns to Nairametrics about students increasingly relying on ChatGPT, only to struggle with answering basic questions when tested.

“Many students copy from ChatGPT and submit polished assignments, but when asked basic questions, they go blank. It’s disappointing because education is about learning, not just ing courses,” he said.

Prof. Nwaogwugwu pointed out that the increasing number of first-class graduates cannot be entirely attributed to AI but itted that even high-performing students use these tools.
“A first-class student is a first-class student, AI or not, but that doesn’t mean they don’t cheat. The benefits of AI may be peripheral, but it is making students dependent and less analytical,” he said.

Another lecturer, Dr. Ereke, from Ebonyi State University, raised a different concern that some lecturers themselves are guilty of the same practice.
“It’s not just students using AI lazily. Some lecturers, out of their own laziness, generate lesson notes, course outlines, marking schemes, and even exam questions with AI without reviewing them. Students in turn use AI to generate answers. It’s a cycle of laziness and it is killing real learning,” he lamented.

Students’ perspectives on usage
Students, on the other hand, say AI has improved their learning experience by making academic materials more understandable and accessible.

Eniola Arowosafe, a 300-level Business istration student in Unilag, shared how AI has significantly aided her learning by breaking down complex and providing summaries of lengthy texts.
“AI helped me understand things more easily, especially when dealing with complex topics,” she explained.

However, she recalled an instance when she used AI to submit her project, only for her lecturer to immediately recognize that it was generated by ChatGPT and reject it. Eniola noted that it was a good-bad effect.

Bryan Okwuba, who recently graduated with a first-class degree in Pharmacy Technology from the University of Lagos, firmly believes that his academic success wasn’t due to any AI tool. He attributes his outstanding grades to actively engaging by asking questions and focusing on areas that lecturers emphasize in class, as they are often reflected in exam questions.

“It’s all about being present, paying attention, and tapping into the wealth of knowledge shared by my colleagues,” he said,

Tunde Awoshita, a final-year marketing student in UNIZIK, its to occasionally copying directly from ChatGPT when facing multiple deadlines.
“To be honest, there are times I copy straight from ChatGPT when I have multiple deadlines, and I know I’m guilty of that, most times the lecturers don’t get to read through them, but AI has also helped me learn faster.”

Balancing AI’s role in education
Experts believe the solution lies in AI literacy; teaching students and lecturers how to use AI as a learning aid rather than a shortcut.

Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, highlighted the integration of AI into Nigeria’s education system, stressing the importance of a balanced approach that maintains human involvement while harnessing AI to improve learning outcomes.
“As we navigate the rapidly evolving landscape of Artificial Intelligence (AI), it is crucial that we prioritise human agency in education. We must ensure that AI enhances, rather than replaces, educators’ vital role in shaping young minds,” he said

Concerns over AI in Learning
Dorcas Akintade, a cybersecurity transformation expert, addressed growing concerns regarding the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT and their potential risks to the educational system.

She acknowledged the benefits of AI, however, emphasized the need for caution in its usage.
Akintade highlighted the increasing hesitance among educators and schools toward incorporating AI tools in learning environments. She identified two primary reasons why AI tools are discouraged in educational settings: security risks and plagiarism. She explained that AI tools like ChatGPT are trained to respond based on interactions, which may not align with the expectations of educators.
“It is not looking at it as a tutor,” Akintade said, explaining that AI doesn’t cater to specific teaching methods.

Plagiarism is another issue, as AI pulls from existing data, often without proper attribution

“A lot of people need to understand, like I said, this is data that has been trained on. It is not just bringing things out from the sky. It’s bringing information that some other people are fed into it, which in essence means that is another person’s paperwork,” she cautioned.

Additionally, Akintade highlighted an early issue in AI development known as “hallucination,” where AI tools would generate information that was not factual.
“Hallucination meant that it was bringing out information from the air. If ChatGPT could not get that information from you, it was going to make one up,” she explained.

She recommended “grounding” AI by providing it with specific information to avoid such errors.

Navigating AI in Education
Akintade argued that banning AI tools outright is not the solution, particularly when AI presents an opportunity to leapfrog traditional educational methods.

She believes that consistently reinforcing key information helps people and avoid making mistakes when faced with challenges.
“Immersion brings conversion. When you tell people the same thing over and over again, when they are about to make the mistakes, then they’ll .”

She also empasized the need for clear policies and procedures within schools, noting that many schools should address the people and process aspects of this usage.

Prof. Nwaogwugwu has resorted to in-class assignments and tests to counter AI-driven academic dishonesty.
“Now, I mainly use assignments to ensure students provide original work.” However, he acknowledged that managing large classes makes this approach difficult.

“If you set complex questions, students won’t be able to use AI to get direct answers,” he explained.

He emphasized the need for universities to train lecturers on crafting exam questions that AI cannot easily solve while acknowledging that some lecturers struggle to counter AI misuse due to a lack of technological awareness. “Some lecturers are analog,” he said.

Nigeria released a draft National AI Strategy in August 2024, focusing on ethical AI development with fairness, transparency, ability, and privacy at its core.
UNESCO in a report calls for the regulation of AI in education, advising institutions to audit algorithms, data, and outputs of generative AI tools to ensure they meet ethical standards, protect data, and filter inappropriate content.
It stresses the need to assess the long-term impact of AI on critical skills like thinking and creativity while creating policies that align with ethical frameworks. Additionally, UNESCO recommends implementing age restrictions for GenAI use to protect younger students and safeguard vulnerable groups.
For governments, it advised adopting a coordinated national approach to regulating GenAI, including establishing oversight bodies and aligning regulations with existing data protection and privacy laws. It emphasizes assessing AI risks, enforcing stricter rules for high-risk applications, and ensuring national data ownership.

The increasing reliance on AI tools like ChatGPT in academic settings has significant implications for the education sector, potentially eroding academic integrity, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills. The industry must invest in training educators and students to use AI responsibly, ensuring that it supplements, rather than replaces, the human element in education.

https://nairametrics.com/2025/02/01/academics-raise-concerns-over-declining-standards-as-students-increasingly-rely-on-ai-in-nigeria/

“AI is a serious challenge when it comes to assignments. Many students no longer think critically—they just go online, generate answers, and submit,” he added.

It's fraudulent to claim that you used AI for your academic work. Institutions must come hard on plagiarism academic fraud

The ones we have been doing with our heads where has it gotten us to? Allow them abeg

AI will give same/similar answers meaning its easier to detect cheaters. Fail them and rusticate them. Simple

AI has removed the need for tutors. The internet breaks concepts into the simplest form, making introduction more accessible to the common man.

This is only the beginning


Recently, I explored the efficacy of AI and comparing China’s DeepSeek and America’s ChatGPT.

Guess what I found

DeepSeek far outclass ChatGPT with in-depth performance results

No need for any long distance effort in research anymore.
AI will make everyone simply lazy

When education becomes too expensive, you try every means to , most especially the easiest way to and avoid repayment/rewrite

The complain will be from Nigerian lecturers. Since they are not lazy why didn't they develop an AI.

Despite the huge numbers of professors in Economics or policy in Nigerian universities, yet no economic theory has been deduced to solve our problems.

Despite plentiful professors of engineering, we still import generators and touch lights.


First give yourself happiness.
https://youtube.com/shorts/b0AwH4lY2nU?si=ym4uLSBQSY0_gzn8



Them wan blame AI.

It will surely get worse.

You all should relax. Ai will aid learning greatly.

There were concerns too when calculators were invented.

You can’t say you prefer walking to driving a car because car might make you become lazy.

FreeStuffsNG:


https://nairametrics.com/2025/02/01/academics-raise-concerns-over-declining-standards-as-students-increasingly-rely-on-ai-in-nigeria/

Tough people create easy moments, easy moments creates weak people, and weak people create tough times

Ai written essays or academic writings are very easy to detect. It produces the same line of thoughts without referred sources. Also, the absence of human reasoning and thoughts is a giveaway. Ai can only work for a take home assignments. Turnitin is also a game changer as it will detect all these.

COMRADES, this report is true, students these days over rely on AI, and I don't know why

It’s funny how people are waking up to institutional corruption. Education was a bubble and it will soon burst with the advancement of AI and technology. Education will become more expensive in future as AI take all the jobs.

Na today? Oyinbos dey use AI like water. Ba sem dry teach our guys wey go study for tgeirr land.

Kaycee9242:
The ones we have been doing with our heads where has it gotten us to? Allow them abeg

Solution: Why would i give you an assignment to take home and generate AI answers for me. You will take my test in class after each coursework.

They use AI The ones here can't even think that AI actually exist for assignments

So?
Did they fail exam?
Did they cheat?
Was the AI answer they gave wrong?
....So what's the point

They plagiarized? Plagiarism has been existing since writing began and there's a way it's been handled....so what's the fuss about?

Obidient students

Nigeria has never been serious with academic integrity. When I was studying in an American school, few Nigerians that saw my weekly assignments used to tell me we write like postgraduate because 9f citations and references. If you don't cite and reference, and even add quotations on some, they flag it.

Now AI has come. Even foreign universities don't know how to handle that because ai detectors don't actually work - too many false positives and false negatives.

It's like saying students should not use caculators.

If the lecturers can give very good lectures the sudents will be able to used chatGPT to make good research and not just copy.

Then focus more on practicals. Education is changing to more direct learning. Days of theory are coming to an end. Direct Practicals is the future for education

Lol... It's not about A.I

The issue is your teaching methods and the glaring lack of common sense or rudimentary intelligence among the students.

If a Postgraduate student doesn't know how to maximise A.I to eradicate duplicity and plagiarism, then that student needs to go back to secondary school.

How engaging are your lectures? Do you actually interact with the students? Or do you just repeatedly give out handouts and boring explanations?!!


Yes, a lot of students are mentally lazy, but truth be told... Many more lecturers are extremely poor and uncreative as tutors.

Hmmm AI. I think it has advantages and disadvantages. I think u can go through the materials provided by AI and then form it into your own words to avoid plagiarism and in essence to understand the subject or topic yourself.

The way sadistic lecturers want students to fail woefully is a perfect e. g of our evil nature as Nigerians.
Secondly I don't want is it with univ profs and technology. Na so as electoral officers they abandoned d irev and went archaic. Bunch of spoilers. I hate to see them complain.

Barrywilly:
Ai written essays or academic writings are very easy to detect. It produces the same line of thoughts without referred sources. Also, the absence of human reasoning and thoughts is a giveaway. Ai can only work for a take home assignments. Turnitin is also a game changer as it will detect all these.

. Not in all cases o. Excellent students know hiw to use AI to their advantage. Using the AI is an art. There is a way you teach AI to work for you because already have a good idea of what you're ding. I'm not talking about those lazy dullards o. Let ne not say much now.

Only if they know what AI is capable of doing... I snap my question paper and ed it .. AI solve it within 5sec.. including complex maths.

What do you expect. Kids as early as 2yrs has tab already and can access YouTube not to talk of 10yrs and above child.