Skills gap in AI knowledge and use growing among students | Neural Nexus Daily Episode 08
A significant skills gap in the knowledge and use of generative AI is growing among university students, a key concern raised at the 2025 European University Association AI Conference. Experts warn this divide, also present among faculty, risks widening and eventually impacting the labour market.
The gap is largely driven by a lack of clarity and fear. Many students avoid using AI because they are afraid of being penalised, as university rules are often inconsistent or unclear. This confusion is amplified by conflicting faculty attitudes, where some lecturers punish AI use as plagiarism while others mandate it in class.
The conference highlighted three distinct institutional strategies to address this challenge:
The Structural Approach (KU Leuven, Belgium): This university is investing in AI literacy for everyone—students, faculty, and support staff—and has created clear, accessible guidelines to ensure AI is used with transparency and academic integrity.
The Guidelines-First Approach (European University Cyprus): Facing chaotic and contradictory rules across different departments, this university developed a university-wide, principle-based framework. This provides a consistent set of core values while still allowing for discipline-specific applications.
The Cultural Approach (Zurich University of the Arts): Rather than creating a separate AI policy, this arts-focused university is embedding AI competency directly into its institutional culture. It uses "living documents" and internal support networks to foster critical and creative engagement with the technology.
The underlying solution across all approaches is to move beyond avoidance or bans. Success lies in creating clear policies, fostering critical AI literacy for the entire academic community, and guiding users on how to engage with these tools ethically and effectively. The ultimate challenge for higher education is to continually ask how AI can be leveraged to help us think and act better as humans.
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