ECOWAS Parliament seeks regional AI framework, says edtech now a necessity

Because the arena continues to explore the enormous benefits of Man made Intelligence (AI), the legislative organ of the Financial Community of West African States (ECOWAS Parliament) has called for harmonisation against ownership and use of technology-pushed education.

Talking the day gone by at the opening of its Joint Committee meeting on Schooling, Science and Custom, Properly being, Telecommunication and Data Technology, keeping in Dakar, Senegal, the Co-Chairperson, Honourable Orlando Dias, emphasised the must location the regional tutorial systems for a digital future, namely in the face of immediate technological evolution and the arena upward push of AI.

The session formed part of the regional effort to toughen innovation, childhood empowerment, and digital governance.
The committee due to this canvassed a Community Act on AI, noting that such regulations will present an ethical and ethical framework to knowledge the improvement and use of emerging applied sciences in West Africa.

“Schooling catalysed by technology is a in point of fact grand in addressing inclusion, childhood employability, and economic competitiveness,” the committee famed.

Other audio system wired that synthetic intelligence would possibly well well also easy no longer merely be adopted but strategically mastered, with full consideration to its social, economic, and political implications, together with knowledge safety, digital fairness, and ethics.

“Schooling catalysed by technology is the keystone in addressing inclusion, childhood employability, and economic competitiveness,” the committee famed.

Other audio system equally gave reasons synthetic intelligence would possibly well well also easy no longer be entirely adopted but strategically mastered, with full consideration to its social, economic, and political implications, together with knowledge safety, digital fairness, and ethical standards.

They held that by balancing theory and observe, ECOWAS will likely be ready to fabricate actionable strategies for a resilient, progressive, and inclusive education ecosystem across its Member States.

Dias, in his non-public ability, acknowledged the digital intention forward for West Africa used to be being formed at this time. “Our work must deem the aspirations of West African childhood and the demands of the 21st century,” he added.

The Senegalese Minister of National Schooling, Moustapha M. Guirassy, cautioned Africans against passive consumption of synthetic intelligence in location of developing, regulating, and emerging with innovators rooted in African values and priorities.

With the theme, ‘Prioritising Schooling Technology and Innovation in the ECOWAS Plan’, he acknowledged: “Africa can't be disclose with ingesting AI. It must instil its knowledge, its reminiscence, its vision of the arena, its humanism and even its existential questions. It is no longer a seek knowledge from of integrating the dominant fashions but of developing a tutorial AI, a daring, solidary, rooted image.

“We have faith the abilities, we have faith got the childhood, we have faith got the cultures, what stays is for us to unite our methods, to federate our will and to advise with a single insist to fabricate synthetic intelligence a lever of emancipation and no longer a part of exclusion, a instrument of sovereignty and no longer a channel of assertion.”

Guirassy also proposed a regional West African Pact to knowledge the ethical and inclusive use of AI in education, built on six pillars: a regional ethical charter on AI, shared digital tutorial assets in African languages, a network of AI consultants, teacher certification, a regional innovation fund, and knowledge sovereignty policies.

Moreover, the head of the Senegalese Delegation to the ECOWAS Parliament, Guy Marius Sagna, acknowledged education technology used to be no longer an possibility but a strategic necessity in the living.

He famed that the COVID-19 pandemic served as a catalyst for digital transformation in education, and called on West Africa to transcend ingesting foreign technology and commence developing homegrown solutions tailored to its needs.

Sagna warned that the frail “one-size-suits-all” mannequin of education used to be becoming primitive and that education technology would possibly well well also easy be worn to promote fairness and inclusivity, namely for inclined groups.

He acknowledged: “Schooling applied sciences construct no longer most fascinating constitute the foundation that can enable us to conquer the present crisis, they signify a strategic crucial for national construction.”

The one-week meeting is anticipated to fabricate policy strategies for adoption by the ECOWAS Parliament, with a spotlight on inclusive digital transition, regulatory readability, and regional cooperation.