Stakeholders Call for Intentionality in Adopting AI With Ethical Considerations

Oluchi Chibuzor

The Country Director of StudyIn Nigeria, Mary Agbu, has stressed the need to be intentional and balanced in the adoption of AI with ethical considerations and the values of education.
Speaking at the StudyIn Global Study Conference 2026, Agbu urged education stakeholders to align with evolving global education and career landscapes and help students make informed decisions about their studies and future careers.
For her, discussions on AI should involve parents, schools, and other stakeholders to ensure that students understand the opportunities and challenges associated with the technology.
“Education should continue to promote values and ethics as AI becomes more widely adopted,” stated Agbu. “One of the things that we really push out in the college is values.”
The Chief of Staff and director at StudyIn Nigeria, Adiba Ofungwu, said there was a significant gap between the realities of education in Nigeria and the demands of the changing global learning environment.
Ofungwu said students need adequate preparation to compete with their counterparts abroad, many of whom are already familiar with AI-driven learning environments.
“StudyIn is seeking to bridge the gap by providing students with the information and guidance needed to navigate global higher education opportunities and prepare for changing educational demands. Students need to understand their academic options, available scholarships, and the relationship between their chosen courses and future career goals,” she said.
The conference theme, ‘Future Ready: Succeeding in an AI-driven World’, brought together students, parents, education stakeholders and university representatives.
Commenting, Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer and founder of Bloom Academy for Artificial Intelligence, Dr Lola Olukuewu, said Africans, especially Nigerian students, should be equipped to be future-ready, especially given AI’s evolution. She maintained that integration of AI into education should be balanced with an understanding of the value system and the ethics of education.
“AI has come to stay, from the realities we are seeing, especially since we’ve seen it happen before, through the advent of the Internet. We’re having a sort of repeat of the Y2K advent, with AI. The educational system is being revamped as well, and so we need to let our learners know how to be future-ready, so that the changes in the world and career space don’t meet them unprepared.
“As it is now, we’re being reactive because most of the educational systems globally are changing very fast. In fact, China recently revamped thousands of its courses and expunged them from its curricula because they have now become obsolete. We have to begin to catch them young by letting them know on time that the world out there has changed, and help them to reposition themselves in such a way that they are future-ready for the realities they are going to meet,” she said.