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| Format: | Preprint |
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2026
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| Online Access: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.27708 |
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| _version_ | 1866914520501321728 |
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| author | Adedeji, Abidemi Kuburat Tchakounte, Franklin Yusuff, Sulaiman Oluwasegun |
| author_facet | Adedeji, Abidemi Kuburat Tchakounte, Franklin Yusuff, Sulaiman Oluwasegun |
| contents | Artificial intelligence (AI) is now embedded in educational, civic, and economic systems worldwide. For African primary and secondary education, this creates a double imperative: to prepare a young population (over sixty per cent of Africans are under twenty-five) for AI-mediated labour markets without uncritically importing curricula designed for other linguistic, cultural, and socio-political contexts. The African Union's Continental AI Strategy (2024) and the 2025 Africa Declaration on AI have elevated these questions to the continental agenda. This paper proposes a Pan-African, culturally contextualised, and ethically grounded framework for integrating AI education into African primary and secondary schools. The paper is a structured conceptual synthesis of continental and national policy documents, peer-reviewed scholarship on AI ethics, AI literacy, decolonial pedagogy, and Ubuntu-grounded AI governance. We contribute: (i) a framework of six guiding principles, four curriculum domains, five ethical competencies, and an age-banded progression from lower primary to upper secondary; (ii) a comparative analysis of continental and national policy contexts; (iii) an explicit mapping between global AI-ethics principles and Ubuntu-informed relational ethics; (iv) a planned empirical validation programme combining a Delphi study, teacher surveys across anglophone, francophone, lusophone, and arabophone contexts, and multi-country classroom piloting; and (v) targeted recommendations for policymakers, educators, civil society, and international partners. We argue that an ethical AI curriculum can serve as a transformative tool for equity, innovation, and social justice, and outline a research agenda to embed ethics, resilience, and critical thinking at the core of Africa's digital future. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_27708 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Towards an Ethical AI Curriculum: A Pan-African, Culturally Contextualized Framework for Primary and Secondary Education Adedeji, Abidemi Kuburat Tchakounte, Franklin Yusuff, Sulaiman Oluwasegun Computers and Society Artificial intelligence (AI) is now embedded in educational, civic, and economic systems worldwide. For African primary and secondary education, this creates a double imperative: to prepare a young population (over sixty per cent of Africans are under twenty-five) for AI-mediated labour markets without uncritically importing curricula designed for other linguistic, cultural, and socio-political contexts. The African Union's Continental AI Strategy (2024) and the 2025 Africa Declaration on AI have elevated these questions to the continental agenda. This paper proposes a Pan-African, culturally contextualised, and ethically grounded framework for integrating AI education into African primary and secondary schools. The paper is a structured conceptual synthesis of continental and national policy documents, peer-reviewed scholarship on AI ethics, AI literacy, decolonial pedagogy, and Ubuntu-grounded AI governance. We contribute: (i) a framework of six guiding principles, four curriculum domains, five ethical competencies, and an age-banded progression from lower primary to upper secondary; (ii) a comparative analysis of continental and national policy contexts; (iii) an explicit mapping between global AI-ethics principles and Ubuntu-informed relational ethics; (iv) a planned empirical validation programme combining a Delphi study, teacher surveys across anglophone, francophone, lusophone, and arabophone contexts, and multi-country classroom piloting; and (v) targeted recommendations for policymakers, educators, civil society, and international partners. We argue that an ethical AI curriculum can serve as a transformative tool for equity, innovation, and social justice, and outline a research agenda to embed ethics, resilience, and critical thinking at the core of Africa's digital future. |
| title | Towards an Ethical AI Curriculum: A Pan-African, Culturally Contextualized Framework for Primary and Secondary Education |
| topic | Computers and Society |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.27708 |