Curriculum and our impulse

For better or for worse, academia is different than the corporate sector. It is meant to engage a deeper sense of analysis, to allow for issues to be debated and reflected upon. Learning is deliberate and incremental. For an enterprise that is built on serious engagement of the mind, emphasis must be on fundamentals, rigour and quality, not on sweeping changes to the curriculum in response to global trends and events. It is not to say that global trends and events are not important; it is simply to say that the academic approach to those changes must be rooted in care, thought and rigour, not on impulsive behaviour.

The recent announcement by HEC that starting 2026 all undergraduate and post-graduate programmes must have a three-credit hour course on AI is more of the latter (impulse) than the former (serious thought). The justification, as per HEC, is that "in the fast-changing landscape of the 21st century, Artificial Intelligence has emerged as a revolutionary force" – and thus everyone, whether in private sector or the public sector, should take a course on it.

There is much to unpack here, but given the limited space of this column, let us start with just a few issues. First, we must ask, what is the goal here? Clearly, HEC cannot expect that a single course can cover the mathematical foundations of AI, especially for students who do not have a strong background in mathematics. If the goal is to expose students to the tools that are available, they are likely to change quickly – so does the curriculum change every year? Does one really need a full course to see how to give prompts to a bot? Given how our curriculum is designed, I doubt if the goal is to talk about ethics of AI, the impact on vulnerable groups, the fragmented regulatory landscape or the environmental cost of data centres.

Here, it is also important to recognise the existing problems in the HEC-approved curriculum at the bachelor's level for general education courses. Let me illustrate with a couple of examples. Let us look at the bachelor's requirement for History (or English), there is a natural science requirement in there that states, "The university/concerned department may offer any course in the broader category of 'Natural Sciences' which should have relevance to the purpose of the degree program." I am struggling to understand which of the natural sciences has more relevance to History, or English. All of them? None of them? Another example is in natural sciences. Biology students do not have to take any real math courses except two semesters of "Quantitative Reasoning" – which is a strange mix of algebra, statistics, logic and numerical literacy. For an institution like HEC that wants to be on the cutting edge, the lack of emphasis on fundamentals is disturbing.

There is also a broader question here about the HEC requirements and how has that worked out. For example, do we honestly believe that our students who take just a semester of Pakistan Studies really engage with the material, develop a sophisticated understanding of history, craft their critical thinking skills, or sharpen their writing abilities? One can make the same argument about many other attempts at having national requirements that do little to actually train our students in understanding the world around them and help them to actively contribute to it in meaningful ways.

I teach in an engineering programme, and have close family at many universities, including those that are considered global powerhouses of innovation or scholarship. Not one of these institutions has an AI course requirement. There are plenty of AI courses at these institutions, but they are not a requirement. Of course, just because others are not doing something does not mean that we should not either. The argument is, what is our reason to do something? I am afraid if we really ask ourselves this question, we will find that our reason is rooted not in careful deliberation or analysis, but in optics and impulsive behaviour. That behaviour is non-serious and antithetical to serious learning.