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1 Nigerian Students Turn to aI For Tests Answers, Lecturers Raise Alarm

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reinventing education while making discovering more accessible but also sparking disputes on its effect.

While students hail AI tools like ChatGPT for enhancing their learning experience, speakers are raising issues about the growing dependence on AI, which they argue fosters laziness and weakens scholastic integrity, especially with many trainees unable to safeguard their assignments or provided works.

Prof. Isaac Nwaogwugwu, a lecturer at the University of Lagos, in an interview with Nairametrics, expressed disappointment over the growing dependence on AI-generated responses amongst students recounting a current experience he had.

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"I provided a project to my MBA students, and out of over 100 trainees, about 40% sent the exact same responses. These students did not even understand each other, but they all used the very same AI tool to generate their actions," he said.

He kept in mind that this trend prevails among both undergraduate and postgraduate students but is especially concerning in part-time and distance knowing programs.

"AI is a severe difficulty when it concerns projects. Many students no longer think critically-they just browse the web, generate answers, and submit," he added.

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

This debate raises crucial concerns about the function of AI in scholastic stability and student development.

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

Since December 2024, ChatGPT had more than 300 million people using the AI chatbot each week and 1 billion messages sent every day worldwide.

Decline of academic rigor

University speakers are increasingly worried about students sending AI-generated tasks without genuinely comprehending the material.

Dr. Felix Echekoba, a speaker at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, revealed his concerns to Nairametrics about students progressively relying on ChatGPT, only to have problem with answering basic concerns when tested.

"Many trainees copy from ChatGPT and submit sleek assignments, however when asked fundamental concerns, they go blank. It's disappointing due to the fact that education has to do with finding out, not just passing courses," he stated.

- Prof. Nwaogwugwu mentioned that the increasing number of first-rate graduates can not be entirely credited to AI but confessed that even high-performing trainees utilize these tools.
"A first-class student is a top-notch trainee, AI or not, but that doesn't mean they do not cheat. The benefits of AI might be peripheral, but it is making students dependent and less analytical," he said.

- Another speaker, Dr. Ereke, from Ebonyi State University, raised a different concern that some lecturers themselves are guilty of the same practice.
"It's not simply trainees using AI lazily. Some lecturers, out of their own laziness, generate lesson notes, course lays out, marking plans, and even examination concerns with AI without evaluating them. Students in turn utilize AI to create answers. It's a cycle of laziness and it is killing genuine knowing," he lamented.

Students' point of views on usage

Students, on the other hand, say AI has actually improved their knowing experience by making academic materials more easy to understand and lespoetesbizarres.free.fr available.

- Eniola Arowosafe, a 300-level Business Administration student at Unilag, shared how AI has actually considerably helped her learning by breaking down complex terms and offering summaries of prolonged texts.
"AI assisted me comprehend things more easily, especially when dealing with complex topics," she explained.

However, she recalled an instance when she utilized AI to submit her job, only for her speaker to instantly recognize that it was produced by ChatGPT and reject it. Eniola kept in mind that it was a good-bad impact.

- Bryan Okwuba, who recently graduated with a first-class degree in Pharmacy Technology from the University of Lagos, bytes-the-dust.com firmly thinks that his academic success wasn't due to any AI tool. He attributes his exceptional grades to actively engaging by asking questions and focusing on locations that lecturers stress in class, as they are frequently reflected in exam concerns.
"It's everything about existing, focusing, and taking advantage of the wealth of understanding shared by my associates," he said,

- Tunde Awoshita, a final-year marketing student at UNIZIK, admits to occasionally copying straight from ChatGPT when dealing with multiple deadlines.
"To be sincere, there are times I copy directly from ChatGPT when I have numerous due dates, and I know I'm guilty of that, the majority of times the speakers do not get to check out them, however AI has likewise assisted me learn much faster."

Balancing AI's role in education

Experts believe the service lies in AI literacy