A former Deputy Provost of the Nigerian Institute of Journalism (NIJ), Dele Omojuigbe, has called for capacity building for university AI lecturers to ensure the effective integration of artificial intelligence into universities’ academic curricula.
Speaking in an exclusive phone interview with AIbase reporter Ugochukwu Levi, Dr Omojuigbe identified several factors militating against the teaching of artificial intelligence in universities across the country, including inadequate human resources, poor capacity building, insufficient funding, and, more worrisome, senility among many lecturers.
He charged academic institutions, including universities and related establishments, with focusing more on routine training for younger lecturers who still possess the capacity to retain new learning. According to him, this development would keep them abreast of trends in the field, rather than relying heavily on older professors already struggling with senile decline and whose chances of adapting to new technologies are slim. He added that the government should intensify funding efforts to bridge the gap.
“Permit me to say this: how equipped are the universities? Because if you must teach, you should know what to teach and how to teach it. When the students are ready, the lecturer will appear. Let me reverse it: when the lecturers are ready, the students are already there. So how vast is their knowledge? Do they have the resources and capacity to deliver?” Omojuigbe probed.
The former Head of Department, General Studies, at the institution also advocated for AI to be taught across all disciplines, not only as a standalone course, in higher institutions. He stressed that everyone is affected by the societal or professional demands of AI and, as such, should possess a solid understanding of its applications.
“Both approaches are important…when it is taught as a standalone course, they become experts in the field, and when it is taught across disciplines, everybody will have access to it so that you do not need to study AI independently before knowing how to apply it,” he said.
Dr Omojuigbe advised that the integration of artificial intelligence into university curricula should not necessarily begin on a large scale. Rather, he said it could start gradually with lecturers already acquainted with the basics teaching students while also developing themselves in line with global best practices in AI tutelage. He, however, insisted that younger lecturers are better suited for the task.
“The people who should teach artificial intelligence should be the younger lecturers. Everybody is clamouring for artificial intelligence, including organisations and government, and if that is the case, lecturers should stand up and embrace it. Universities should ensure capacity by training their lecturers,” Omojuigbe emphasised.
Dr Omojuigbe, a prolific writer who has authored several books, including ‘NIJ’s Inside Story… From My Lenses… The Beauty, The Bend, warns against the imminent abuse AI could encourage among students if overreliance becomes the norm. He said many students are already neglecting their writing skills since the advent of AI, a situation he believes could erode knowledge and render individuals intellectually empty.
He therefore stressed the need for stringent measures to curb the excesses of artificial intelligence in students’ academic work, suggesting that any work containing more than 70 per cent AI-generated content should be automatically disqualified.
“I support AI applications in the area of research, but not in writing. AI has destroyed critical thinking among students, killing creativity and emotions. Writing requires emotional expression, which AI does not have,” he lamented.
He also charged the university community to pay greater attention to students’ defence of their academic work, maintaining that it remains the only reliable way to ascertain originality and deter the abuse of AI tools in academic outputs.
“Let them defend what they have done. Let the emphasis be on defence because the strength of every research lies in the literature review, which AI will not do for you,” Dr Omojuigbe concluded.
He therefore called on stakeholders, university governing bodies, and the government to pursue international collaborations to ensure that artificial intelligence is responsibly embedded in university and other higher education curricula.
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This call comes amid growing concerns over the integration of AI into the academic curricula of higher institutions to better equip future graduates with the AI skills needed to function effectively and efficiently in the labour market after leaving the four walls of learning.
Senior Reporter/Editor
Bio: Ugochukwu is a freelance journalist and Editor at AIbase.ng, with a strong professional focus on investigative reporting. He holds a degree in Mass Communication and brings extensive experience in news gathering, reporting, and editorial writing. With over a decade of active engagement across diverse news outlets, he contributes in-depth analytical, practical, and expository articles exploring artificial intelligence and its real-world impact. His seasoned newsroom experience and well-established information networks provide AIbase.ng with credible, timely, and high-quality coverage of emerging AI developments.