The commentary we’ve seen since the end of 2022 about the dangers that ChatGPT and other chatbots pose to higher education assessment does a great disservice to our students, overlooking the opportunity for positive change and growth when it comes to assessment and critical thinking.
But it also misses a far more serious potential challenge to higher education in the UK – ChatGPT threatens to undermine the steps that have been taken in recent years to diversify the curriculum.
The curriculum is an essential tool in shaping the knowledge and values of our students. It determines what students learn and how they learn it. In the UK and other Western countries, the curriculum has historically been dominated by a Western perspective, which contributes to the marginalisation of other perspectives and voices.
A concerted effort has been made in recent years to diversify the curriculum and bring alternative perspectives to the forefront. This has included the introduction of topics such as postcolonial literature, critical race theory, and feminist theory. Many programmes and modules now have much more diverse reading lists, whilst others use approaches such as critical science agency and place-based education to contextualise how knowledge is created, claimed, and taught.
