AI Education Must Form Citizens, Not Just Users

A student can learn to produce a polished report with artificial intelligence and still be unable to judge whether its claims are true. A lecturer can generate a course in minutes and still fail to create a learning experience. A pastor can expand digital reach while weakening the responsibility that belongs to public teaching. A public institution can automate a service while making its decisions harder for citizens to understand or challenge.

These are not arguments against technology. They expose the inadequacy of defining AI readiness as the ability to use a tool.

Africa needs graduates who can work competently with artificial intelligence. It also needs citizens, ministers and professionals who can test synthetic knowledge, protect people with less power, understand context, explain consequential choices and direct technology towards the common good. AI education must therefore form citizens, not just users.

The fourth Annual TVET and Higher Education Conference and Expo concludes today under the theme Creating Citizens, Developing Skills: TVET, Universities, Technology and the Future of Democracy. UNESCO-UNEVOC’s events calendar describes the gathering as a dialogue among educators, policymakers, researchers, industry leaders and students about education’s role in work and citizenship.

A conference theme is an agenda for discussion, not evidence that institutions have already achieved the desired outcomes. Its importance lies in naming a question that technological enthusiasm frequently neglects. What kind of…