What Transpired
The 6th Annual Higher Education Conference 2025
The National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) held a two-day 6th Annual Higher Education Conference at hotel triangle Mbarara, western Uganda on March 24th and 25th, 2025. The conference is part of Higher Education Week and is the second conference to be held outside Kampala. The theme of the conference was “Challenges, Best Practices, and Strategies for Artificial Intelligence Integration in Higher Education in Uganda.”
Download Full Proceedings for Conference Below:
Guest of Honour
Hon. Janet K. Museveni
First Lady and Minister of Education and Sports
Aim of the Conference
Conference Main Goal
Identify
To Identify and promote the infrastructure, tools, and skills required for effective AI integration in higher education institutions.
Explore
To explore innovative approaches for revolutionising curriculum design, teaching methods, and assessment practices through AI.
Assess
To assess and propose policy and regulatory environment improvements to support effective AI integration in higher education.
Discuss
To discuss and share experiences on adopting and implementing AI technologies within higher education settings.
Provide
To provide a platform for disseminating scientific and academic research papers and findings on AI to stakeholders.
Our Speakers
Keynote Speakers
Prof Azra Naseem
Associate Director at Aga Khan University
Dr. Ernest Mwebaze
ED, Sunbird AI
Emerging Issues
The key emerging issues from the Conference included:
- AI had varied benefits to students, educators and researcher, such as increased accessibility, per- sonalized learning, instant feedback on assessments, saves time to perform tedious tasks, genera- tion of class activities, designing the research proposal, data collection and analysis, and writing/ presenting and disseminating research results.
- The challenges/limitations of AI include: the AI tools are not 100 percent accurate; academic in- tegrity; data quality; ethical concerns regarding data privacy; equitable access to technologies; inadequate infrastructure; impact on learning process; such as creativity and teacher-student re- lationship; and inadequate knowledge on AI.
- Educators should be innovative in assessment amidst use of AI by students. The assessment strat- egies that promote critical thinking among students.
- Students in HEIs were using various AI tools. Educators should, therefore, trained on the use of different AI tools. The students in HEIs should also be trained on responsible use of AI.
- There was need to develop policies at Institutional, Regulatory, and National level on use of AI. Further, NCHE needs to develop a Regulation on use of AI in HEIs.
- There is need for collaborations and partnerships at national, regional and international levels for effective integration of AI in various education and other activities.
Conference strategies for the follow-up
- Disseminate conference proceedings to all the stakeholders.
- Develop the action plan for implementing strategies for AI integration in Higher Education in Uganda.
- Publish the conference proceedings on the NCHE website and online.
- Follow up on feedback on the implementation of the action plan.
Captured Moments
Gallery
Photos from the conference
