AI Must Assist, Not Replace, Quality Assurance Judgement
The central messages from the keynote presentation at the 2026 Higher Education Authority (HEA) Winter School Capacity Building Workshop was that artificial Intelligence can support higher education quality assurance, but it must not be allowed to replace human judgement, institutional responsibility and academic accountability.
This stern message was delivered yesterday by Eng. Elton Sixpence of ENH Training, South Africa, during his presentation to Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) at Chrismar Hotel in Livingstone.
The keynote presentation, titled “Capitalising Artificial Intelligence for Quality Assurance and Curriculum Excellence in Higher Education,” focused on practical pathways for stronger curricula, better teaching, learning, assessment and evidence-based institutional improvement.
The presentation framed AI not as the starting point, but as a disciplined assistant that only becomes useful when connected to real academic processes, real evidence and real responsibility.
One of the clearest messages was that the starting point must always be quality, including standards, curriculum, teaching, learning, assessment, evidence and improvement.
Eng. Sixpence’s presentation emphasised that AI can help HEIs prepare drafts, compare evidence, find gaps, generate questions and summarise patterns. However, people must still interpret context, verify claims, weigh consequences, defend decisions and remain accountable.
The keynote also drew a clear boundary around AI-assisted programme accreditation. AI may help reviewers identify missing evidence, unclear alignment, risk areas, reviewer questions and possible improvement suggestions, but it must not approve, reject, rank institutions, replace reviewers or ignore context.
The strongest lesson was perhaps the simplest, that AI should not accredit a programme but should help reviewers see whether the evidence supports the quality claim.
The presentation also demonstrated how AI can support evidence-based curriculum review by identifying strong areas, outdated topics, missing competencies, weak alignment and committee questions, while leaving academic communities to decide graduate identity, academic standards, local relevance, workload balance and implementation capacity.
Download Keynote Presentation: https://hea.org.zm/download/hea_winter_school_2026_elton_sixpence_ai_qa/
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When AI Meets the DG: Eng. Sixpence demonstrates how artificial intelligence can rework an existing image into a studio-style portrait, using an image of HEA Director-General, Professor Kazhila C. Chinsembu, during the keynote presentation at the 2026 Winter School Capacity Building Workshop.
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