The University of Ghana’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Nana Aba Appiah Amfo, has called on universities to move beyond traditional examinations and written assignments as artificial intelligence makes it easier for students to produce essays and answers without showing genuine understanding.
“If a student can generate an apparently competent essay in seconds, what exactly are we assessing when we ask for that essay?” she asked.
Professor Amfo was delivering the keynote address at the opening of the University of Lagos International Week 2026, held at the J.F. Ade Ajayi Auditorium from October 12 to 17.
The event’s theme was “Re-imagining Pedagogy and Teaching for Higher Education in the 21st Century”.
She said universities should make greater use of oral examinations, project-based assessments, portfolios, presentations and practical demonstrations to test students’ reasoning, skills and ability to apply knowledge.
“We must distinguish between a student who can produce an answer and one who understands how to arrive at, evaluate and defend that answer,” she said.
Professor Amfo said AI should be viewed neither only as a threat to academic integrity nor uncritically as a cure for educational challenges.
“The real challenge is to ask how AI can strengthen learning without weakening the intellectual capabilities that education is supposed to develop,” she said.
She urged institutions to include digital literacy and applied AI across their curricula, while ensuring students understood the social inequalities, ethical issues and responsibilities linked to developing and using such technologies.
African universities, she said, should help shape AI systems rather than remain passive consumers of innovation. Professor Amfo, a linguist, warned that African languages remained under-represented in the databases behind many AI technologies.
She said some tools struggled with local names, accents, expressions and culturally specific meanings, raising the risk that greater reliance on AI could deepen existing linguistic and knowledge inequalities.
“If these systems become increasingly central to education, we must ask whether they will expand access to knowledge or reinforce existing linguistic and epistemic inequalities,” she said.
She called for African universities to contribute their languages, knowledge systems, research and ethical perspectives to AI development.
Professor Amfo also advocated teaching methods based on problem-solving, case studies, simulations, collaborative projects, fieldwork and community engagement. These approaches, she said, would help students construct, test and apply knowledge instead of simply receiving information.
Using public health as an example, she said addressing resistance to health advice required more than technical expertise. Students also needed communication skills, cultural sensitivity, ethical judgment and the ability to work with communities affected by local beliefs, economic realities and experiences with public institutions.
She highlighted the University of Ghana’s student venture support programme, which helps students develop ideas into viable initiatives, and the Tetremapa Initiative, which examines how AI and speech-recognition technology can reduce communication barriers for people with speech impairments while incorporating Ghanaian languages.
She said both examples demonstrated the value of interdisciplinary learning and helped students identify problems, test assumptions, communicate, respond to criticism, collaborate and manage uncertainty.
Professor Amfo also called for inclusive teaching for students with disabilities, disadvantaged students and those whose first language differs from the language of instruction. Universities, she said, should provide accessible materials, suitable assessment arrangements, assistive technologies and support systems.
“Inclusion is not achieved simply by opening the university’s gates. Access gets students into the university, and inclusion determines whether they can participate, belong and succeed once they arrive,” she said.
Those attending included Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, represented by Lagos State Commissioner for Tertiary Education Mr Tolani Sule; Minister of Education Dr Tunji Alausa, represented by Mrs Elizabeth Ogundipe; and National Universities Commission Executive Secretary Professor Abdullahi Ribadu, represented by Dr Ayoteju Ogun.
Also present were United Nations Development Programme Resident Representative in Nigeria Ms Elsie Attafuah and UNILAG Vice-Chancellor Professor Folasade Ogunsola.
Professor Amfo urged university leaders to support teaching innovation through staff development, incentives and policies that value teaching excellence alongside research, while adapting global practice to local challenges such as large classes, limited resources and unequal access to internet connectivity and digital devices.
