Celebrating Academic Excellence: The UoM Faculty of Agriculture Scholarship & Prize Giving Ceremony (2024/2025)

 

Congrats to Prize Winners of the UoM’s Faculty of Agriculture! 🎉

Motto: Scientia Salus Patriae ("Science for the Health of the Fatherland")

There is nothing quite like seeing hard work pay off! In May 2026, the University of Mauritius (UoM) Faculty of Agriculture hosted its Scholarship and Prize Giving Ceremony for the 2024/2025 academic year. It gave due recognition to the students who have excelled in their in their respective fields like biotech, microbiology, and food science.

🏆 The Big One: Postgraduate Scholarship

The Postgraduate Scholarship is the pinnacle of undergraduate achievement at UoM. It is awarded to the single best student in the final year of an undergraduate degree programme based on their overall academic performance across the entire duration of their degree.

ABDOULA Raeesah

BSc (Hons) Applied Biochemistry (with a 6-month Internship)

Raeesah stayed consistent from day one, and this scholarship is her golden ticket to future research.

🌱 Corporate Backing: Eclosia Group Scholarship Scheme

Partnerships between academia and industry are vital for nurturing local talent. The Eclosia Group Scholarship Scheme recognizes the brightest minds early in their academic journey, awarding a scholarship to the top-ranking first-year student in the degree stream. But there's a catch: to keep it every year, you have to stay ranked #1 in your class. Talk about pressure!

The New Winner (Year 1)

JUGGOO Diksha

BSc (Hons) Biotechnology (with a 6-month Internship)

Massive congrats to Diksha for setting the bar high right out of the gate!

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The Academic Champ (Renewal)

FLORE Agnès

BSc (Hons) Microbiology (with a 6-month Internship)

Kudos to Agnès for keeping her streak alive and locking down that renewal!

💸 Cash Prizes: The Merit List

The University also hands out highly competitive Cash Prizes at the end of each academic year. Based purely on merit from yearly assessments, these prizes are awarded to standout students in both the full-time degree stream and the diploma stream.

• Year I (Full-time Degree)
  JUGGOO Diksha
  BSc (Hons) Biotechnology (with a 6-month Internship)
  (Yep, Diksha won twice!)
• Year I (Part-time Diploma)
  GOPAUL Goonisha
  Diploma in Forestry
• Year II (Full-time Degree) — It's a Tie!

  Two rockstars shared the top spot in Microbiology:

  FLORE Agnès Marie
  BSc (Hons) Microbiology

  KUNTHASAMI Poovarshi
  BSc (Hons) Microbiology
• Year IV (Full-time Degree) — It's a Tie!

  These two shared the throne in Food Science:

  JADOO Geetrisha
  BSc (Hons) Food Science

  SOOWOMBHUR Hemshika
  BSc (Hons) Food Science

Wrapping Up

It’s so exciting to see the talent coming out of the Faculty of Agriculture. With our degree programs that has a 6-month internships, our students aren't just memorizing textbooks—they are getting real-world, hands-on experience. Congratulations to all the awardees! You guys make us and the Faculty of Agriculture proud. 🚀

Sustainable Fodder: Field Day on the ROM/GEF/UNDP Project Organized by FAREI

 

Demonstrating Integrated Practices for Sustainable Fodder and Livestock Production

👨‍🌾 Field Day Attendance

Mr. K. Boodhoo, academic staff of the Animal Production unit at the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Mauritius, attended the field day session organised at FAREI Curepipe Livestock Research Station.

Below are his reflections on the project activities, rationale, knowledge transfer mechanisms, land availability challenges, and fodder estimation for livestock production.

The Republic of Mauritius/Global Environment Facility/United Nations Development Programme (ROM/GEF/UNDP) project entitled “Mainstreaming Sustainable Land Management and Biodiversity Conservation in the Republic of Mauritius (SLM)” is a national initiative aimed at promoting the sustainable use of land resources while safeguarding biodiversity in Mauritius and Rodrigues. The project is being implemented by the Government of Mauritius with the support of the United Nations Development Programme and funding from the Global Environment Facility.

Under Component 2, namely “Implementing Sustainable Land Management (SLM) measures and technologies for improved management and conservation of forest, agricultural and grazing ecosystems”, the Food and Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (FAREI) has implemented a pilot initiative entitled “Conservation Agriculture and Improved Livestock Technologies through the Establishment of Demonstration Sites.”

The initiative focuses on the establishment of an integrated crop–livestock system whereby waste generated from crop and livestock activities is transformed into compost and recycled into the soil to enhance fertility and support sustainable fodder production. The fodder produced is subsequently utilised for livestock feeding, thereby contributing to improved animal productivity and the safe production of meat and milk.

Project activities have been carried out across three FAREI sites, Curepipe. Mapou, Petit Merlot with the objective of enhancing fodder production through the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices that reduce reliance on agrochemicals while conserving ecosystems and natural resources.

1. Rationale of the Activity: The "Why"

The core rationale behind this joint ROM/GEF/UNDP initiative is to pivot Mauritius and Rodrigues away from resource-depleting farming and toward climate-resilient, nature-positive, and circular agriculture.

• Environmental Imperative: As a Small Island Developing State (SIDS) with finite land resources, Mauritius’s ecosystems are uniquely vulnerable to climate change and external shocks.
• The Circular Approach: The project tackles this by breaking the reliance on costly, ecologically damaging external inputs like synthetic agrochemicals. Instead, it pairs crop and livestock systems in a closed loop: livestock and crop waste are recycled into compost, which restores soil fertility to grow diversified, high-nutrition fodder.
• The Bottom Line: Productivity gains are achieved through resource conservation, not at the expense of it—stabilizing local feed supply while restoring fragile ecosystems.

2. Knowledge Transfer: Translating Innovation to Farmers

The project explicitly aims to move "beyond policy commitments" and put practical tools directly into the hands of local producers. This translation relies heavily on FAREI’s technical expertise through a decentralized, community-driven framework:

• Living Laboratories: The sites at Curepipe, Mapou, and Petit, Merlot, act as regional hubs where farmers can physically witness the technologies in action.
• Direct Capacity Building: Knowledge transfer happens via organized field days, practical training programs, and collaborative extension services.
• Inclusive Engagement: A major pillar of this translation is ensuring the active participation of women and community members, which global data shows significantly strengthens the long-term adoption of climate-smart practices.

3. The Land Ownership Dilemma: Do Farmers Have the Plots?

This is a critical bottleneck for scaling up the project’s success. While the initiative proves that these methods work wonderfully on specialized FAREI demonstration plots, the physical reality for individual Mauritian farmers presents a structural challenge.

• Highly Constrained Land Space: As noted in the speech, land in Mauritius and Rodrigues is strictly limited. Many smallholder livestock breeders do not own vast pastures; they often rely on state lands, marginal roadside plots, or small, fragmented family plots to harvest wild fodder.
• Scaling Vulnerability: If a farmer does not have secure land tenure or a dedicated plot to establish a diversified fodder system, adopting these "integrated crop-livestock systems" becomes incredibly difficult.
• Strategic Gap: For the project to achieve its true metric of success—integrating these practices into national systems and value chains—the government will likely need to accompany these agricultural technologies with land-use policies that provide farmers with secure, long-term access to land.

4. Fodder Estimation & Livestock Requirements

To determine whether the project has accurately estimated the required fodder volumes for various livestock categories, we look at the design of the demonstration sites:

• System Design: The project has established "diversified fodder systems" explicitly engineered to improve animal nutrition and ensure a stable feed supply. This diversity (mixing different grasses and legumes) implies that researchers have taken into account the differing nutritional and volumetric needs of dairy cows, beef cattle, goats, or sheep.
• The Role of FAREI: Because FAREI is treating these sites as "living laboratories," they are actively measuring input-output ratios (e.g., how much compost yields how much fodder, and how that feed impacts milk and meat yields).
• The Missing Link: While the scientific framework exists at the research station level, customizing these fodder estimations for an individual smallholder farmer is highly variable. A backyard breeder with three dairy cows requires a completely different spatial layout and fodder volume than a larger goat breeder.

Critical Synthesis: Strengths vs. Challenges

🌿 Core Strengths

• Proven Circular Mechanics: Effectively turns waste (pollution) into compost and feed (assets).
• Robust Institutional Backing: Strong collaboration between UNDP, GEF, Ministry of Agro-Industry, and FAREI ensures technical and financial backing.
• Inclusive Capacity Building: High focus on women and community-level ownership guarantees better local adoption.

⚠️ Critical Challenges to Address

• The Land Access Barrier: Brilliant techniques mean little if smallholders lack the secure acreage to plant dedicated fodder.
• Data Customization: Transitioning standard research-station fodder formulas into dynamic, easy-to-use metrics for diverse, small-scale farmers.
• Policy Integration: Moving from a successful "pilot project" mindset into mandatory national agricultural and land zoning policies.

Conclusion

The project is highly successful as a proof-of-concept. It effectively demonstrates that climate-resilient agriculture is viable in Mauritius. However, its long-term survival depends entirely on the next phase: bridging the gap between FAREI’s controlled, well-funded environments and the messy, land-constrained realities of the average Mauritian smallholder.

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ROM/GEF/UNDP · SLM Project · FAREI Demonstration Sites · Conservation Agriculture & Improved Livestock Technologies

Europe Day 2026: Faculty of Agriculture of the UoM Showcases Erasmus+ Partnership with University of Palermo

🇪🇺 8 May 2026 · Telfair, Moka ⭐ 76th Anniversary of Europe Day

Europe Day 2026

The Faculty of Agriculture, University of Mauritius, was proud to participate in the celebrations marking the 76th anniversary of Europe Day which was held on 8 May 2026 evening in Telfair, Moka.

📌 Poster Presentation

"Seeds of Innovation: Growing A Global Agri-Food Partnership between UoM & UniPA"

From Exchange to Excellence: Transforming Agri-Food Research

The poster was presented by Assoc. Prof. J. Govinden Soulange, Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture, where she highlighted the key milestones achieved and the roadmap for future collaboration through our partnership with the University of Palermo (UniPA), Department of Agricultural, Food and Forest Sciences, under the Erasmus+ KA171 agreement (UniPA-UoM).

Assoc. Prof. J. Govinden Soulange, Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture

🎯 Outcomes & Visibility

It was a great opportunity to improve the visibility and credibility of our Faculty of Agriculture activities and its role to a wide audience consisting of high-level dignitaries including the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Speaker of the National Assembly, several Cabinet members, members of the diplomatic corps, and representatives from the private sector and civil society and officials. The Europe Day celebration provided an excellent platform to showcase the Faculty's international engagement and its commitment to excellence in agri-food research and education.

Europe Day 2026 · 76th Anniversary · Telfair, Moka · Faculty of Agriculture, University of Mauritius

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AI in Education: A Challenge We Cannot Ignore, and an Opportunity We Should Not Miss

About the Speaker: These reflections emanate from ideas shared by Professor Dan Banik, Professor of Political Science at the University of Oslo, Norway, during his public lecture "Beyond the Hype: Can Generative AI Deliver Democracy and Inclusive Global Development?" hosted by the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Mauritius. As a political scientist specializing in democracy and development, Professor Banik offered a balanced, globally informed perspective on AI's dual role as both a transformative opportunity and a democratic challenge—particularly for institutions in the Global South.

Artificial intelligence is no longer a distant or abstract technological development. It is already reshaping how societies learn, work, govern, communicate, and imagine the future of development. Rather than presenting AI as either a miracle solution or an unavoidable threat, Professor Banik invited the audience to consider both sides of the debate. AI is already transforming education, healthcare, agriculture, climate adaptation, public administration, and democratic participation across the Global South. At the same time, it raises serious concerns around misinformation, surveillance, structural inequality, accountability, and the erosion of public trust.

For the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Mauritius, this discussion is especially important. Agriculture, food systems, animal science, climate resilience, and rural development are all fields where AI may play an increasingly significant role. AI can support access to knowledge, improve decision-making, assist research, strengthen agricultural productivity, and help prepare students for a more data-driven professional world. Yet these benefits will only be meaningful if AI is guided by local needs, transparency, accountability, and human judgement.

🎓 Rethinking Assessment in the Age of AI

One of the immediate concerns raised is the impact of AI on university assessment. Traditional take-home essays, term papers, and written assignments are becoming harder to evaluate in the same way as before. If students can use AI tools to generate or heavily edit written work, lecturers may struggle to know how much of the final submission reflects the student's own understanding.

This does not mean that written assignments have no value. Rather, it means that we need to become more deliberate about what we are assessing. Are we assessing the final text only, or are we assessing the student's ability to think, question, analyse, interpret data, apply concepts, and defend their reasoning?

Some universities are already responding by bringing back oral examinations, in-class writing, pen-and-paper assessments, presentations, and video-based submissions. These formats allow educators to observe not only the final answer, but also the student's thought process.

In agricultural education, this could be highly valuable. Students could be asked to explain a crop management decision, defend a food safety recommendation, interpret animal production data, or present a solution to a real farm-level problem. AI may help them prepare, but the student must still understand the science, the context, and the consequences of their recommendations.

💡 Teaching Students How to Use AI, Not Pretending They Will Not

Universities are already beyond the stage of simply telling students not to use AI. The more realistic and educationally valuable approach is to teach them how to use it properly. This means helping students understand both the strengths and limitations of AI. AI can summarize information, generate explanations, suggest structures, compare ideas, and support brainstorming. But it can also produce false information, oversimplify complex issues, reproduce bias, and present weak arguments with confidence.

For students in agriculture and food science, this distinction matters. An AI-generated answer about pesticide use, animal nutrition, food safety, soil fertility, or climate-smart agriculture should never be accepted blindly. Students must learn to ask:

• Is the information scientifically correct?
• What evidence supports this claim?
• Is the recommendation appropriate for the Mauritian context?
• Are there environmental, ethical, economic, or public health implications?
• Which sources should be checked before applying this advice?

In this sense, AI can become a tool for developing critical thinking — but only if educators design learning activities around questioning, verification, and reflection.

🌍 AI as a Tool for Democratizing Knowledge & Supporting the Global South

AI has the remarkable ability to democratize access to knowledge, building on earlier developments like massive open online courses (MOOCs). Students can now access explanations, translations, examples, summaries, and tutoring support at any time. This can be particularly important for students who need additional help outside formal lecture hours or who learn better through repeated explanation and practice.

In the Faculty of Agriculture, AI could support students by helping them revise difficult concepts such as animal physiology, plant pathology, food microbiology, soil chemistry, agricultural economics, or research methodology. It could help students generate practice questions, simplify complex journal articles, or compare different farming systems.

Another important theme is the difference in how AI is discussed globally. In Europe, the debate often focuses on risks such as deepfakes, job losses, and threats to democracy. In many parts of the Global South, including countries such as India, China, Malawi, and Mauritius, the discussion often includes a stronger focus on opportunity. AI should not be seen only as a technology imported from elsewhere. It should also be seen as a tool that can help address local and regional challenges, from climate-smart agriculture to extension education for farmers.

⚖️ AI, Ethics, and Academic Integrity

The rise of AI requires a serious conversation about academic integrity. If students use AI to produce work without understanding it, then learning is weakened. If they submit AI-generated text as their own thinking, then academic honesty is compromised. But if they use AI transparently to support brainstorming, revision, language improvement, or exploration of ideas, then it can become part of a legitimate learning process.

The challenge is to create clear faculty-level guidance. Students need to know when AI use is acceptable, when it is not, and how it should be acknowledged. A useful direction may be to require students to disclose how they used AI. For example, students could include a short statement explaining whether they used AI for brainstorming, language editing, summarizing sources, generating practice questions, or checking structure. This would move the focus away from secrecy and toward responsible use.

🚜 Preparing Graduates for an AI-Shaped World & The Changing Role of the Educator

Agriculture is becoming increasingly data-driven. Precision agriculture, remote sensing, climate modelling, disease detection, food traceability, livestock monitoring, and supply chain analytics are all areas where AI and digital tools are becoming more relevant. Students graduating from the Faculty of Agriculture will enter a professional world where AI literacy is an advantage. They do not all need to become programmers or AI specialists. But they do need to understand what AI can do, where it can fail, and how to work responsibly with AI-supported systems.

AI literacy should therefore become part of broader scientific literacy. AI does not remove the need for lecturers. If anything, it makes the educator's role more important. When information is abundant, guidance becomes essential. Lecturers help students understand context, evaluate evidence, connect theory to practice, and develop professional judgement.

In agriculture, this local knowledge is especially important. A generic AI answer may not understand Mauritian farming systems, local food preferences, island-specific climate risks, import dependence, land constraints, pest pressures, or the realities faced by farmers. Educators are needed to help students adapt knowledge to real conditions.

🔭 Conclusion: From Fear to Responsible Adoption

The message is not that AI is harmless. AI raises real concerns: misinformation, manipulation, bias, overdependence, and unequal control by powerful technology companies. But AI also offers major opportunities in education, health, governance, accessibility, and development.

For the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Mauritius, the task is not to resist AI blindly or adopt it uncritically. The task is to shape its use in a way that strengthens learning. AI should help students become better thinkers, not weaker ones. It should improve access to knowledge, not replace understanding. It should support academic development, not undermine integrity. And it should prepare graduates to contribute meaningfully to agriculture, food systems, and sustainable development in Mauritius and beyond.

The future of education will not be AI-free. But with the right guidance, it can be AI-literate, ethical, inclusive, and deeply human.

 

ERASMUS+ How Student Mobilities Are Shaping Research Impact & Agricultural Innovation

International academic mobility has evolved from a cultural exchange initiative into a strategic driver of research excellence, curriculum innovation, and sustainable development. Through the Erasmus+ programme and our partnership with the University of Palermo (UNIPA), the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Mauritius (UoM) is actively cultivating a new generation of globally minded agricultural scientists.

🎓 Postgraduate Research: MPhil/PhD Mobilities (UoM → UNIPA)

Our postgraduate mobility cohort represents a cross-section of Mauritius' agricultural priorities: nutritional security, digital transformation, biodiversity valorization, and climate-resilient production. Each student is leveraging UNIPA's specialized laboratories, field networks, and interdisciplinary expertise to advance their thesis work.

Ms Pooja Seenauth and Ms Y. Boyjnath are investigating the nutritional architecture of underutilized or staple crops with high adaptive potential.

• Ms Seenauth's PhD research focuses on the nutritional quality of green jackfruit, a historically overlooked fruit with significant potential as a plant-based protein and micronutrient source. Her work at UNIPA involves advanced proximate analysis, amino acid profiling, and bioactive compound extraction, aiming to position jackfruit as a functional food ingredient in sustainable diets.
• Ms Boyjnath is currently examining the nutritional quality of sweet potatoes, with particular attention to genotype × environment interactions.
• Ms Alia Nowrung is pioneering work in IoT-assisted freshwater aquaculture. Her project integrates low-cost environmental sensors, real-time water quality monitoring, and predictive algorithms to optimize feed conversion ratios, minimize disease outbreaks, and enhance survival rates in closed-loop aquaculture systems. The mobility provides access to UNIPA's precision agriculture labs, where she is refining data pipelines and validation protocols.
• Ms Marie Nadine Corine Moloye is focusing on ICT tools for improving marketing efficiency in Mauritian agriculture. This work directly supports national efforts to reduce post-harvest losses and improve farmer incomes.
• Ms Cheetra Bhajan is bridging ethnobotany and food science by researching sugar substitutes derived from endemic Mauritian plants. Her mobility at UNIPA centers on phytochemical screening, glycemic index testing, and sensory evaluation of native sweetening compounds. By characterizing underutilized endemic species, her work contributes to biodiversity conservation, circular bioeconomy models, and healthier alternatives to refined sugars in processed foods.

🌍 Undergraduate Mobility: Immersive Learning & Capacity Building

Complementing our postgraduate pipeline, five Year-2 BSc (Hons) Agricultural Science and Technology students are currently undertaking a six-month mobility at UNIPA (February–August 2026). This structured immersion is designed to transform classroom theory into applied, cross-cultural agricultural practice.

During their stay, students are participating in:

• Field rotations across Mediterranean cropping systems, orchard management, and sustainable soil practices
• Laboratory attachments focused on food safety, post-harvest technology, and agroecological monitoring
• Cultural and institutional exchanges that build intercultural communication, adaptability, and global citizenship

This early-career mobility serves as a critical talent pipeline. Students return to UoM with enhanced technical fluency, refined research questions for their final-year projects, and a broader perspective on how Mauritian agriculture fits into global food networks.

🔬 Research Impact & Institutional Synergies

These mobilities are not isolated academic exercises; they are strategically integrated into UoM's broader research and internationalization agenda. Key impact pathways include:

Impact Dimension	Description
Knowledge Co-Creation	Joint data collection, shared methodologies, and co-authored publications between UoM and UNIPA researchers
Capacity Building	Upskilling in advanced analytics, open-source software, IoT deployment, and nutritional spectroscopy
Policy & Industry Relevance	Research outputs directly inform national strategies on food security, digital agriculture, and biodiversity conservation
SDG Alignment	Contributions to SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), SDG 4 (Quality Education), SDG 9 (Innovation), and SDG 13 (Climate Action)

🔭 Looking Ahead

Each student returns not only with data and skills, but with professional networks, cross-cultural competencies, and a clearer vision of how localized research can achieve global relevance.

We extend our deepest gratitude to the Erasmus+ programme, UNIPA faculty and administrative teams, and the UoM research supervisors who have championed these exchanges. Their collective commitment ensures that student mobility remains a cornerstone of agricultural innovation, academic excellence, and sustainable development.

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Erasmus+ Teaching Mobility Drives Statistical Excellence & Institutional Partnerships

 

Strengthening Research Through Numbers: Erasmus+ Teaching Mobility Drives Statistical Excellence & Institutional Partnerships

Faculty of Agriculture • University of Mauritius • Erasmus+ Teaching Mobility Programme

International academic mobility remains one of the most powerful catalysts for knowledge exchange, capacity building, and cross-border collaboration. Through the Erasmus+ Teaching Mobility programme, the Faculty of Agriculture of the University of Mauritius has recently hosted two fruitful visits from scholars affiliated with the University of Palermo (UNIPA), Italy. These exchanges have not only equipped our doctoral researchers with practical statistical competencies but have also laid the groundwork for a formal, long-term institutional partnership.

Here’s a look back at the outcomes of these two successful mobility visits.

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📊 January 2025: Hands-On Statistical Training with Assoc. Prof. Stefano Barone

From 13–23 January 2025, Associate Professor Stefano Barone delivered a 10-hour intensive workshop titled “Elements of Statistics for Experimenters” to a cohort of 20 doctoral students. Designed to bridge theory and practice, the workshop provided hands-on training in Design of Experiments (DOE) and guided students through real-world experimental data analysis using Microsoft Excel. Participants left with immediately applicable skills to structure, analyze, and interpret their own research data with greater confidence and precision.

Beyond student training, Prof. Barone hosted a 2-hour seminar for our academic staff, where he shared insights into innovative teaching methodologies and highlighted collaborative opportunities available at UNIPA.

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💻 March 2026: Open-Source Analytics & PhD-Focused Instruction with Arvind Ruggoo

Building on the momentum of the previous year, Arvind Ruggoo joined us from 9–20 March 2026 to deliver 16 hours of applied statistics instruction tailored specifically to doctoral candidates in Agriculture, Food Science & Technology, and Biotechnology.

Leveraging JAMOVI—a free, open-source statistical software package—Dr. Ruggoo structured the training to align with students’ research progression:

• 6 hours for Year I PhD students, focusing on foundational statistical concepts and software navigation
• 10 hours for Year II PhD students, diving into advanced modeling, hypothesis testing, and data visualization

The practical, software-driven approach ensured that early-career researchers could immediately integrate these tools into their ongoing thesis work, promoting reproducible and transparent research practices.

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🤝 Forging Long-Term Institutional Ties

Perhaps the most strategic outcome of these mobility visits was the initiation of formal partnership discussions. During Dr. Ruggoo’s stay, faculty members engaged in targeted dialogue aimed at formalizing an academic collaboration with UNIPA’s Department of Agricultural, Food and Forest Sciences.

Both institutions are now working toward signing a Letter of Intent or Research Collaborative Agreement (RCA), which will serve as a foundation for:

• Joint research initiatives and co-authored publications
• Shared participation in EU and international funding calls
• Continued staff and student mobility exchanges

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🔭 Looking Ahead

These two Erasmus+ teaching mobility visits underscore our commitment to accessible, interdisciplinary, and data-driven research training. By introducing robust tools like Excel and JAMOVI, our visiting scholars have empowered PhD candidates to design rigorous experiments, analyze complex datasets, and produce high-impact research.

We extend our sincere gratitude to Associate Professor Stefano Barone, Associate Professor Arvind Ruggoo, and the Erasmus+ programme for making these enriching academic exchanges possible.

From Passive Consumers to Critical Thinkers: Navigating AI in Higher Education

🧠 National Research Week 2026 · Roundtable Discussion · University of Mauritius

From Passive Consumers to Critical Thinkers:
Navigating AI in Higher Education

These reflections on the use of AI and student learning were written from a recent roundtable discussion held during National Research Week 2026 at the University of Mauritius. As the integration of AI continues to significantly impact critical thinking, its use represents new educational challenges while fundamentally shifting the skills students must develop. The following insights explore the urgent need to redefine pedagogy, ensuring that universities cultivate active, critical thinkers rather than passive learners who rely on AI as a substitute for foundational learning.

The Crisis of Passive Learning: Challenging the AI Status Quo

The integration of AI is significantly impacting student learning and critical thinking, primarily presenting new educational challenges while shifting the types of skills students need to develop.

📉 Negative Impacts on Cognitive Skills

Surveys of professors and educational reports highlight a troubling decline in students' literacy and numeracy skills as a result of using generative AI tools:

• Reduced cognitive effort: Students are demonstrating lower brain activity, as well as diminished deep and critical thinking.
• Skill degradation: Educators report lower levels of creativity, memory retention, problem-solving, and writing ability, alongside shortened attention spans.
• Outsourcing thought: Students are increasingly dependent on generative tools, essentially "outsourcing" their thinking to AI, raising concerns about creating a "generation of fools". One speaker notes a distinct mindset shift where students now expect platforms like ChatGPT to simply do their assignments for them.

⚠️ The Shift Toward "Passive Learning"

With the rise of "agentic AI" that can independently complete tasks, students are at risk of becoming "passive learners". In this environment, students use AI to generate answers but fail to question the system, blindly accepting the output without critically evaluating whether the information is actually right or wrong.

The Need for New Evaluation Skills

Despite these negative trends, AI is changing how critical thinking must be applied rather than eliminating the need for it. Because students are allowed to use AI platforms, their learning must focus on:

• Validating outputs: Students must possess foundational knowledge to independently validate whether an AI tool is giving them correct output or hallucinating.
• Recognizing quality: The key skill for graduates is no longer just producing work from scratch, but having the ability to "recognize what good work is" — critically analyzing AI outputs for quality, bias, and ethical issues.
• Understanding over copying: Educators emphasize that the ultimate goal is to ensure students understand the material and can construct their own base of knowledge, rather than just relying on a "copy and paste" approach to AI answers.

Preventing Passive Learning: Active Strategies for Educators

📚 Demand foundational knowledge
Students must first develop a strong base of knowledge. Without this, they lack context to know whether AI output is accurate or flawed.

🔍 Teach output validation
Train students to scrutinize AI-generated content for accuracy, bias, and ethical implications — not accept it at face value.

✂️ Discourage copy-and-paste habits
Set clear expectations that simply copying AI outputs is unacceptable. The aim is genuine understanding.

❓ Encourage active questioning
Push students to constantly question the system. AI is beneficial only if it helps students actively construct their own knowledge base.

Agentic AI and the Passive Learner: The Looming Challenge

The shift toward "agentic AI" in education involves moving beyond basic generative AI to systems that can autonomously complete tasks by themselves. Instead of using AI as a supportive tool, students can simply log in and let the agentic AI do all of their assignments. This directly fuels the rise of "passive learners" — students stop actively reading, questioning, or trying to deeply understand the material. Ultimately, agentic AI reflects a broader mindset shift where students increasingly expect AI platforms to just do the work for them.

Redefining Employability & Graduate Agency

There is an ongoing debate about whether the primary purpose of higher education is scholarly knowledge production or workforce preparation. However, balancing employability with critical thinking requires redefining what it means to be employable and fundamentally shifting university pedagogy.

💼 Redefining Employability Beyond Micro-Skills

Viewing employability narrowly as a "bundle of micro skills" does a disservice to graduates. True employability should be understood as "agency" — the capacity to engage with work and interact with others in a productive, relational way. The competencies most highly valued by modern employers are problem-solving, creative thinking, and critical thinking.

📖 Adapting Curriculum and Assessment

Universities must critically examine their curricula. Degree programs must be pedagogically sound, intentionally integrate work-related skills, and reliably assess critical thinking attributes. Students should be encouraged to use AI to augment their knowledge for complex, high-level cognitive tasks, rather than using it as a substitute for learning fundamental concepts.

🧠 Preserving Graduate Agency

A major concern is that graduates will be "seduced by the rationality and efficiency" of AI, passively consuming its outputs and handing over intellectual agency to external systems. To prevent this, universities must train students to be critical of AI-generated knowledge — identifying systemic biases, navigating ethical challenges, and generating robust knowledge relevant to local contexts.

🤝 Co-Evolving with Industry

Achieving balance requires viewing higher education and industry as "co-evolving systems". Universities should nurture ongoing dialogues with employers through curriculum design, teaching, and work-integrated learning. This continuous interaction avoids merely producing "sheep" for the workforce and instead graduates open-minded individuals capable of critical, independent thought.

Should students use AI to augment complex tasks?

Yes — the sources advocate for students using AI to augment knowledge for higher-order cognitive tasks, but strongly warn against using it as a substitute for foundational learning.

Drawing on Bloom's taxonomy, a participant suggests that students should avoid using AI for lower-level cognitive tasks. It is essential that students learn fundamental concepts rather than using AI as a shortcut. However, when engaging in high-level functions — critical thinking, problem-solving, creative thinking — students should actively use AI to enhance and augment their capabilities.

Familiarity with AI for task optimization is becoming a core employability skill. The skills that command the highest salaries are precisely these higher-order cognitive abilities that AI can help augment.

Yet a significant risk remains: young graduates can be easily "seduced by rationality and efficiency", passively accepting AI-generated knowledge without scrutiny. Unlike experienced researchers who can identify biases or hallucinations, students risk handing over their intellectual agency to the machine if they do not maintain a critical lens. AI should be used for augmentation, but students must also be trained to constantly question and evaluate its outputs.

Conclusion

Ultimately, the path forward for higher education lies in balancing technological integration with the preservation of intellectual agency. Rather than allowing AI to serve as a substitute for learning, universities must pivot to a pedagogy that prioritizes foundational knowledge and higher-order cognitive skills like problem-solving and critical analysis. By treating AI as a tool for augmentation rather than a replacement for effort, educators can train students to validate outputs, scrutinize biases, and maintain an active, questioning mindset. Through these intentional strategies, institutions can successfully bridge the gap between academic rigor and workforce readiness, ensuring that graduates remain independent, critical thinkers in an increasingly automated world.

National Research Week 2026 · Roundtable on AI & Higher Education · #HigherEducation #AIinEducation #CriticalThinking #AgenticAI