President S. Joe Qin analyses the role of AI in education, using Lingnan as a case study for pilot scheme outcomes

The evolution of higher education in the digital era has attracted global attention, and Prof S. Joe Qin, President and Wai Kee Kau Chair Professor of Data Science at Lingnan University, recently published a paper titled “AI for education: The digital transformation of a liberal arts institution – implementation at Lingnan University” in a leading international journal Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence. The paper’s in-depth analysis of the role artificial intelligence (AI) plays in education uses Lingnan as a case study to examine the success of its pilot initiatives.

Prof Qin notes that higher education is undergoing an “AI revolution”, not merely reinforcing teaching with technology, but driving the “digital-intelligent transformation” of both teachers and students. Future curricula will shift from a traditional emphasis on memorisation and content mastery towards the application and navigation of knowledge, and students will be trained in prompt engineering in order to validate outputs generated by generative AI, and understand the ethical implications of such automated systems.

Prof Qin stresses that educators are not replaceable. “At its core, education is a social and emotional process, and AI is currently unable to perceive student frustration, demonstrate empathy, mediate peer conflicts, or give emotional support. These forms of ‘emotional value guidance’ are inherently human and beyond the capacity of algorithms. Students must shift from being passive consumers of AI-generated content to active editors and critical thinkers. For example, they should debate AI, identify flaws in logic, and generate multiple solutions using AI, and then evaluate and rank them independently. The key lies in asking the right questions and appraising the quality and accuracy of the responses.”

Click here to read the full study.