Speaker
Description
Eze, U.
Federal College of Education (T) Omoku
princeezeumah@gmail.com
Track: AI, Emerging Technologies and Future Learning
Title: Artificial Intelligence in the Political Science Classroom: Opportunities, Challenges, and Pedagogical Shifts in African Universities
Abstract:
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming higher education, yet its implications for Political Science pedagogy in African universities remain largely unexplored. This paper examines the opportunities, challenges, and required pedagogical shifts for integrating AI into Political Science teaching across African universities. Drawing on a review of current literature and experiential insights from Nigerian university classrooms, the study identifies four key opportunities. First, AI tools such as chatbots and adaptive learning platforms enable personalized learning, allowing students to engage with complex concepts like comparative politics and international relations at their own pace. Second, AI-powered data analytics and visualization tools provide students real-time access to African political and electoral data, strengthening empirical research skills. Third, AI simulations of governance, policy-making, and conflict resolution offer experiential learning that is often limited by resource constraints. Fourth, generative AI expands students’ access to global scholarship, bridging gaps in library resources.
Despite these opportunities, the paper identifies critical challenges: persistent digital infrastructure deficits and internet instability; algorithmic bias that underrepresents African political systems; concerns over data privacy, surveillance, and academic integrity; and limited faculty capacity for AI literacy. The study argues that effective adoption demands a pedagogical shift from AI as a substitute for instruction to AI as an augmentation tool that promotes critical, context-aware analysis.
The paper concludes by proposing a “Decolonized AI Pedagogy Framework” for African Political Science. This framework prioritizes localization of datasets, ethics-centered instruction, faculty development, and policy alignment to ensure AI strengthens the teaching of African governance and political realities rather than reproducing external biases.
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Political Science Education; African Universities; Pedagogy; Decolonization; Digital Divide