University takes lead in Africa as it deploys new AI tool

The seven-year-old Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) in Morocco has become the first university in Africa to announce the implementation of an artificial intelligence-powered learning system, ChatGPT Edu, to enhance educational and administrative functions across the institution.

“This is an important step and [it is] the first time a Moroccan or any African university officially recognises the utilisation of the powerful AI tool into its academic and operational activities,” UM6P said on 8 November in a statement about the official ChatGPT Edu launch.

Dr Abdennasser Naji, a former adviser to the minister of higher education and president of the Amaquen Institute, an education think tank, told University World News that UM6P has invested a lot of money to become the first-ranked university in Africa.

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings placed UM6P in the first 500 universities in the world and ranked it as the top university in Morocco and North Africa.

“Investing in AI is the principal lever in its strategy [to become the top university], and introducing ChatGPT Edu is a step on this way,” said Naji.

Professor Abdul Benahnia, an academic affairs and business development manager of the 3B Golden Gate E-learning platform in Morocco, told University World News that the deployment of an AI-powered learning system like ChatGPT Edu at UM6P marks “a significant milestone for African universities”.

ChatGPT Edu system

ChatGPT Edu is a new version of the Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (ChatGPT) platform built specifically for students, faculty, researchers and campus operations.

The UM6P has established a partnership with OpenAI to acquire ChatGPT Edu which is powered by GPT-4o, OpenAI’s latest advanced language model, designed to be more human-like and process audio and images in real-time in addition to text.

The UM6P-OpenAI collaboration will enable students, researchers and the entire UM6P community to freely access Chat GPT-4o personal accounts and use all its features.

The UM6P indicated that the implementation encompasses three main areas, including personalised student learning through tutoring and career preparation, faculty support for grading and curriculum development, and research assistance for data analysis and grant writing.

The system features enterprise-grade security and privacy controls to protect student data, research outputs, and institutional knowledge.

Advantages

Said Naji: “Students and the academic community could gain many advantages using ChatGPT Edu, including personalised learning and immersive learning experiences as well as integrated learning and an intelligent tutoring system.”

Expanding further, Benahnia said: “For students and the academic community at UM6P, ChatGPT Edu can greatly enhance access to personalised learning resources, supporting self-paced study and [providing] immediate feedback on complex topics.

“Additionally, it can help educators streamline course planning and adapt materials to fit diverse learning needs, but teaching ethics and moral obligations vis-à-vis the use of AI in education seems vital,” Benahnia pointed out.

How does the system work?

Naji explained that the ChatGPT Edu system will be used in personalised student learning through tutoring by chatbots, which can provide students with personalised explanations and practice problems tailored to their individual learning needs, and identify knowledge gaps and recommend specific resources or exercises to help students improve.

Naji added that the ChatGPT Edu system will also help students with career preparation by AI algorithms which can analyse students’ academic performance, interests and skills to suggest potential career paths, provide information on different industries and job roles, and help students create professional résumés and cover letters, and practise for job interviews.

“With reference to faculty support for grading, AI can automate the grading of multiple-choice and short-answer questions, analyse student essays and provide feedback on writing style, grammar and content,” he explained.

As far as faculty support for curriculum development goes, Naji said that AI can analyse student performance data to identify areas where the curriculum may need improvements, and help faculty create engaging and interactive learning materials.

With reference to research assistance for data analysis, AI algorithms can analyse large and complex datasets to identify trends and patterns, and help researchers visualise data and create informative graphs and charts, he said.

Research assistance for grant writing is another benefit. Said Naji: “AI can help researchers identify potential funding sources and write compelling grant proposals, and analyse past successful grant proposals to identify key elements and writing styles.”

Challenges and solutions

Although the ChatGPT Edu system aligns with the modern educational goal of fostering independent, critical thinking skills, which are vital for success in today’s dynamic job market, the issue of ethics remains a big concern, the experts warned.

“Perhaps integrating modules on ethics, or more specifically AI ethics, to raise awareness of the possible consequences as far as intellectual property and moral issues are concerned,” Benahnia suggested.

“Using the ChatGPT Edu system can also present many challenges such as plagiarism, using data of the university in machine learning and inciting students to be machine-dependent,” Naji said.

“UM6P have to ensure that its data is stored safely and will not be used for training ChatGPT Edu,” he added.

These views are in line with the June 2024 study entitled, ‘Africa, ChatGPT, and Generative AI Systems: Ethical Benefits, Concerns, and the Need for Governance’, which called for adopting a balanced approach in Africa as “a one-sided (positive or negative) approach leads to either the neglect of ethical and legal risks associated with AI technology or unnecessary barriers set up against the development of relevant technologies”.

From Morocco to Africa

Naji said other African universities and higher education institutions should learn from the UM6P experience [so that, when you establish] an AI-powered ecosystem for revolutionising today’s higher education systems by providing students, researchers and professionals with a guaranteed learning experience, [it is also] a safe digital usage space.

“UM6P has the technical capabilities to help African universities to deploy ChatGPT Edu, mainly to assist students in tasks including answering questions, drafting documents, summarising text, creating images or automating processes as well as supporting university staff in streamlining paper developments and corrections, helping to simplify complex subjects by analysing metadata and using big data to implement innovation and exploration capabilities,” Naji pointed out.

Status of ChatGPT use in Morocco

Moroccans are increasingly aware of the AI chatbot, ChatGPT, and are among its top users, according to an April 2024 survey for 21 countries by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Morocco is listed second after India for usage of ChatGPT among the 21 countries surveyed.

According to the BCG, 80% of Moroccans surveyed are aware of ChatGPT and 38% are using it.

While the International Monetary Fund ranked Morocco among the top 10 African countries best positioned for AI adoption in 2024, Morocco is 7th in Africa on the AI preparedness index which comprises four key dimensions: digital infrastructure, human capital, technological innovation and legal frameworks.

The 2023 Artificial Intelligence Readiness Index (AIRI) ranked Morocco 88 out of 193 indexed countries.

Among the top 10 African countries included in the index, Morocco ranked sixth after Mauritius, Egypt, South Africa, Tunisia and Rwanda and followed by Senegal, Benin, Kenya and Nigeria.