While Pauline Hanson managed to turn the nation’s heads towards the prospect of tighter immigration policy for a full day this week, anyone who cares about the HE sector needs to understand that in the Trumpian era, you can’t afford to spend too long dwelling on the latest rage bait.
Evidence is mounting, though, that the most serious issue confronting the sector remains the relationship of Tertiary education – but particularly universities – with AI.
Headlines, new regulations, the value placed in HE all tie firmly back to the changes caused by – and deficiencies exposed by AI. The pace of change means the sector must rush to adopt AI, protect itself from AI and understand latest changes in the technology and its impact on staff and students simultaneously. Meanwhile, the strains of doing so present glimpses of strain and confusion to outsiders.
It’s been the same at FC this week – we are struggling to keep up with the number of AI stories struggling for your attention. So hereere is a quick selection of the AI stories across our desk this week – more detail in our longer wrap online.
AI shortcuts stunt learning – but not AI tutors
A large scale study of secondary students in China has found that AI adoption results in a short term improvement in scores and decline in homework duration, but lowers monthly exam scores by 20% within six months.
The study of more than 26,000 students in grades 7-12 found that Generative AI boosted homework performance by 18% after six months of use and completion time per assignment shrank from 64 to 45 minutes. Short and long term learning outcomes were diminished as a result of a reliance on AI, driven primarily by the 81% of students who would seek or be open to outsourcing their homework. This showed up in closed-book exams.
Big Brand Arms Race
Spring racing season is arguably the dullest and most expensive of the nation’s sporting festivals, but it appears to be eclipsed by a nerdy side-hustle – the brand and arms race in AI adoption currently being contested amongst the nation’s universities.
There is La Trobe, which has gone all-in linking their brand to being an AI-first university, and the ingenious in-house, low cost and low-key partner approach of inspired innovation across systems and curriculum by Chris Moran’s team at UNE. Then Monash has pulled out its chequebook for an of-course-acronymed $60 m AI supercomputer MAVERIC and other universities are putting out media releases most weeks at the moment saying they have signed up with a big tech company getting a whole lot of AI that is better than the free stuff.
Which brings us to Flinders, with the fresh announcement that they have cast their lot with Google, giving 30,000 students and of course a whole lot of staff access to Google Enterprise level AI.
Lest anyone think that a sizeable portion may devote their increased AI firepower to stitching Colin Stirling’s head on to the body of a lion or other zany student japes, we chatted to Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor Romy Lawson, who assured FC that the high powered enterprise tools were substantially better than the free ones – and would be put to good use.
Beyond the race – how it will work
“We need to embrace it, this is here this is now, its not going away, we need to make sure our students understand the tools and how to use them in an ethical manner. Its not about banning things, back in the 60s they talked about banning calculators, because that was seen to be cheating. That didn’t last long,” Professor Lawson said.
The Senior DVC of Flinders is disarmingly honest and expert all at once. Romy Lawson is having none of the press-releases at 100 paces competition for AI supremacy, and is able to make the Flinders case refreshingly clear.
When the new kit comes online in October, some of the first to get hold of the new tools will be this year’s graduates. This is an interesting move. The uni is recognising that the graduates of 2026 are going to be expected to be AI savvy, and retrofitting them with free Google classes and access to some high-end tools free of charge is a nice way to help them into the land of work.
Professor Lawson explains that Flinders went with Google because of their capacity to deliver tools that would be useful across the spectrum of uni activities – education, research and also connecting with industry.
Flinders will provide students and staff with access to AI learning modules devised by Google from October, but are also sensible enough to note that it won’t be a process of instant universal enlightenment.
“Its going to be a whole change management process where we have orientation for people how to use the Gemini suite, which will be done hand in hand with Google,” Professor Lawson said.
Providing access to Google’s teaching modules in October was one thing, but encouraging people to actually complete them was another, she said.
To support the process, the university will have champions embedded in Faculties to help others, communities of practice to share ideas and insights on the best ways to use the technologies and lots of work around ethics of use.
The university won’t turn off Microsoft’s co-pilot or other AI tools that staff may choose to use, with a focus on enabling and empowering staff and students who want to use AI.
“I think we will always have some that don’t get over the line (using AI); some will not want to learn something new, and others will have reasons, such as the environmental impact; it won’t be compulsory,” Professor Lawson said.
The University will embed a unit in the curriculum for all first year undergraduate students from Semester 1 next year on the basic skills and ethics of AI use, with a plan to build specific skills for specific disciplines as each cohort moves through their degrees.
Sydney stoush over chat
Meanwhile, up in Sydney there is a to-do about Mark Scott cosying up to ChatGPT, as Stephen Matchett reports.
Uni Sydney announced “free and supported access to OpenAI’s ChatGPT Edu” for students and staff this week.
“Our new arrangement to put AI tools in the hands of our academic community is all about advancing knowledge, delivering transformative education and preparing our graduates to lead” Uni Sydney VC Mark Scott says.
UNSW beat him to it last week, with its own GPT Edu news. As did whoever leaked the Uni Sydney news to its student newspaper ahead of the announcement.
And campus union official Nick Reimer had a view, calling it “reckless and uncritical in the extreme.”
“Determination to actually encourage students to use it flies in the face of our responsibility to cultivate human capacities like understanding, imagination and critique,” he says.
Perhaps no time for staff to get used to the product is part of the problem – UNSW announced universal access to GPT Edu after a ten month trial.
Then there is employment. “Talk of AI-driven operational improvement is code for job-losses,” Dr Reimer warns on X.
Certainly AI is an issue in current enterprise bargaining negotiations at Uni Sydney, the union there wants “enforceable protections governing AI use.” “ Management responds that it is “more appropriate” to protect staff through policies.
AI isn’t a big deal in negotiations at other universities – at least not yet. But Sydney has always been an HE industrial trend-setter.
Trends farther afield
There are also a couple of other interesting papers we perused this week.
In particular, in Sri Lanka a team of researchers looked at the impact of AI use on self-confidence and self-regulation of students in the HR field. They concluded that structured teaching of how to use AI effectively within HR courses was critical to graduate outcomes.
AI perceptions and social licence under the microscope at HE FEST
University of Sydney's AI in HE expert Danny Liu has agreed to speak at HE FEST next week. The program will include an optional intensive workshop examining opportunities to address the social licence crisis that is arising from public distrust of AI use in universities and concerns about degree value in a world of work transformed by the technology.