ISLAMABAD: The National Academy of Higher Education (NAHE) of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) Pakistan has concluded a three-day Tier-I Faculty Training Programme on Artificial Intelligence (AI) for lecturers and assistant professors serving in public sector higher education institutions.
The programme, titled “AI Literacy for Educators: Building AI-Ready Institutions,” was aimed at strengthening the capacity of faculty members to understand, critically evaluate and responsibly integrate AI into teaching, learning, research, assessment and academic practice.
According to HEC, NAHE has so far trained around 400 faculty members from universities, including 332 in cohort-I and nearly 64 in cohort-II. The programme was designed as a comprehensive professional development intervention, combining conceptual understanding, practical hands-on learning, critical reflection and application of AI in diverse academic contexts.
Managing Director NAHE (HEC) Dr Noor Amna Malik was the chief guest at the opening and closing ceremonies, which were attended by members of the NAHE team, resource faculty and participating faculty members.
Addressing the participants, Dr Malik highlighted the importance of ethical use of AI in higher education. She said AI was rapidly changing the ways in which knowledge is created, taught, assessed, researched and applied.
She underscored the need for faculty members to safeguard academic integrity, critically evaluate AI outputs and protect privacy and intellectual property. She also stressed the importance of developing AI-ready institutions, saying meaningful AI integration requires capable faculty, institutional preparedness, appropriate governance mechanisms, ethical safeguards and continuous professional development.
The programme focused on developing foundational and applied understanding of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Large Language Models and Generative AI, and their relevance to teaching, learning, research and assessment.
It also examined discipline-specific applications of AI, including emerging applications in healthcare, business, banking, communication, creativity, data analytics, research and education. The interdisciplinary component enabled participants to consider the relevance and appropriate application of AI within their respective academic disciplines.
