A new national AI policy must recognise higher education and its internationalisation

Generative artificial intelligence calls into question standards and quality assurance

- Bhaso Ndzendze

The emergence of mainstream generative artificial intelligence (AI) in the form of ChatGPT nearly three years ago has had a disruptive impact on higher education.

The challenges it poses have been written and spoken about from various perspectives. But what has not yet come to the fore is how AI is impacting, now and into the future, the internationalisation of higher education.

The withdrawal and revision of the draft National AI Policy present an opportunity to address this.

Recent history has shown that AI is a two-level disruptor in higher education globally.

First, as a process disruptor, it has upended the fundamentals of teaching, learning and assessing by muddying the research process and reliability of literature. On both scores, it calls into question standards, quality assurance and the trust-building processes across the sector and globally that serve as a basis for higher education harmonisation across jurisdictions.

Second, AI as an outcomes disruptor affects the employability of graduates by calling into question the credibility of their qualifications. Employers across the globe are bound to ask whether the students really did the work to obtain the qualification (per the process disruption described above) but that assumes there is a market willing to absorb the graduates — just as easily, the market is coming to believe it can allocate certain functions to AI processes and agents. Universities have had to do soul-searching on the basis of these questions.