Artificial Intelligence (AI) Literacy, An Investment for Enhancing Educators’ Skills in AI Powered Primary Schools in Nigeria

Abstract

A descriptive survey was conducted to investigate whether an investment in artificial intelligence (AI) literacy predicts the enhancement of educators’ skills for them to be effective in an AI powered environment in state primary schools in Nigeria. Three research questions and null hypotheses were formulated at .05 level of significance for the study. 1000 teachers were recruited from across five schools located in five geopolitical zones of the country using cluster sampling. Artificial intelligence literacy and educators’ skills enhancement questionnaire (AILESEQ) was deployed to generate data. Based on the human capital development theory, data was analysed via the simple linear regression. Findings suggest that knowledge of AI, use of AI devices and understanding the ethical issues about AI technologies significantly predict the enhancement of educators’ skills in AI powered primary schools in Nigeria. It is recommended that government should organise training workshops on AI literacy for educators in schools; the policy on education needs review to produce a framework for the introduction of AI in education (AIIE) to benefit the teachers; the curriculum of teacher education has to be revised to feature AIIE; AI literacy should be a requirement for recruiting new teachers; schools have to produce guidelines for the application of AI devices; government can create a demonstration school to trial the AI initiative; government can commit one percent of value added tax to fund AIIE; awareness campaigns should be organised regularly via various media to educate relevant stakeholders about the benefits of AIIE.