Accelerating a University-wide conversation about learning, graduate capability and the student experience
Universities often talk about preparing students for the future. The challenge with AI is that it is no longer the future. Our students are already living, studying and trying to find employment in the age of AI. A typical first year student who came to us directly from competing the HSC last year would have been finishing year 9 and 14 or 15 years old when ChatGPT 3.5 launched in late 2022 and was probably born in the same year as the first iPhone.
Most students report using AI in their studies and have concerns around the impact of AI on employment, whilst few believe that universities are adequately preparing them for an AI-enabled future. Our internal survey data agrees. However, these point to a deeper challenge. Our graduates are entering a labour market characterised by rapid technological change. Recent Australian analysis suggests that generative AI is reshaping work across most occupations and will impact those traditionally taken up by our graduates. AI is already changing the capabilities employers value and increasingly demand, raising expectations for judgement, creativity, communication, ethical responsibility and adaptability alongside technological capability. Recent work by Jobs and Skills Australia highlights growing demand for judgement, adaptability, communication and digital fluency, alongside the ability to work effectively with emerging technologies.
Judgement, ethical reasoning, creativity, agency and active citizenship become more important, not less, as AI capabilities increase.
Similar themes are emerging internationally. OECD work on the future of education argues that the challenge is not simply helping learners use AI, but ensuring they develop the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values that remain uniquely important in a world increasingly shaped by AI. Judgement, ethical reasoning, creativity, agency and active citizenship become more important, not less, as AI capabilities increase. The World Economic Forum has highlighted resilience, agility, empathy, lifelong learning, curiosity, and self awareness as critical dispositions needed now and into the future. More recent OECD work has also shifted attention from what AI can do to the capabilities that distinguish human learners, identifying additional areas such as problem solving and social interaction as increasingly important points of comparison between human and machine capability.
One response would be to add AI literacy as a new introductory course or even to embed it as a new graduate quality. We argue for a different approach. AI raises the standard expected of every existing graduate quality and for how we prepare graduates to work, lead and thrive in a world where AI is embedded in professional practice, decision-making, everyday work and their lives. To help this approach, the University is releasing a green paper Education in the Age of AI: The University of Sydney’s approach to learning, graduate capability and the student experience to bring these discussions together. Importantly, as a green paper, it is not a completed strategy. Its purpose is to accelerate a University-wide conversation that has already been happening about the future of education at the University.
A challenge much bigger than technology
Much of the public discussion about AI focuses on tools and productivity, but education faces a deeper challenge. AI is changing what graduates need to know, do, and be as well as raising the standard expected of our graduates. As noted in the reports linked above, it is reshaping disciplines, professions and workplaces. It is also challenging longstanding assumptions about how universities develop and assure capability. When AI can generate many of the outputs required of our traditional assessments (and of many white-collar employees), producing these is no longer sufficient evidence of useful capability. This raises fundamental questions:
- Relevance: How do we prepare graduates for careers and lives where AI is embedded in daily practice?
- Engagement: How do we ensure learning remains active, meaningful, and relational?
- Trust: How do we maintain confidence among employers and society that our qualifications certify genuine capability?
These are not technical or misconduct questions; they are core educational questions.
Building on assessment leadership
The University of Sydney has already established national and international leadership in responding to the impact of AI on assessment. The Sydney Assessment Framework, better known perhaps as the two-lane assessment approach, is being adopted by many universities globally. It recognises that universities need to help students develop knowledge, skills and capabilities (including how to use contemporary technology such as AI tools effectively), and provide trusted assurance of individual graduate capability.
However, assessment reform alone is not enough. As the technology has markedly improved and the implications are becoming clearer, the conversation has evolved. AI is not just changing assessment but also the capabilities graduates need, the roles educators play, the design of curriculum, the nature of learning experiences, the role of universities as part of the education sector and particularly the expectations students bring to university.
The challenge is therefore broader than assessment integrity. It is about the future of education itself.
This green paper builds on the University’s leadership in assessment reform but asks a larger question. If AI changes what graduates need to know, do, and be, what should a Sydney education look like in response?
Learning from a broader conversation
The ideas in the green paper have not emerged from the University alone. Over the past two years, the University of Sydney has worked with universities, schools, vocational education providers, employers, professional bodies, policymakers and international partners to explore the implications of AI for learning, capability and employability.
One outcome of these discussions was the development of the Castlereagh Statement out of a national summit hosted by the University of Sydney with educators from all sectors, leaders, students and industry representatives from across Australia. The Statement calls for a shared national understanding of what we value in human learners and educators and argues that every Australian should be able to engage with AI “confidently, critically and creatively”, with “human flourishing, not technology, at the centre”. The Castlereagh discussions reinforced that these challenges extend well beyond universities. Our green paper explores what those ideas mean specifically for higher education and for the University of Sydney.
Every generation of educators gets excited, concerned or confused by technologies that are expected to transform learning. We have evolved our teaching and curriculum to meaningfully include technologies like calculators, the internet, Wikipedia, smartphones and online learning. However, AI is also a social and cultural technology that differs fundamentally from previous waves of digital innovation. Unlike tools such as calculators, search engines and mobile devices, AI can contribute to activities traditionally associated with human intelligence, including communication, knowledge creation, problem-solving and feedback. It is cultural because it is built on human language, knowledge and creative expression and it is social because it becomes embedded in the ways people learn, teach, collaborate and make decisions.
What should students learn, how do we know they have learned it, and who do they become?
For higher education, this means AI, unlike these previous tools, is reshaping the conditions under which teaching, learning and knowledge creation occur. Universities must therefore focus not only on AI literacy, but also on the human relationships and capabilities that remain central to education. What should students learn, how do we know they have learned it, and who do they become? The green paper begins from the view that answering those questions well matters more than any particular technology.
The future of education is not primarily about AI or the technologies that will follow it, whether robotics, biotechnology, quantum computing or something yet to emerge. Rather, it is about the human capabilities that become more important in a world where AI and other emerging technologies are increasingly pervasive and powerful.
What does not change?
A central argument of the green paper is that AI does not change the purpose of universities. Our role remains to develop genuine capability, assure achievement of that capability and prepare graduates to contribute to society. Human judgement remains central, deep disciplinary expertise is fundamental and learning will always be relational. AI makes these foundations more important rather than less if our qualifications are to remain trusted and relevant. Instead of seeing the challenge as preserving education exactly as it is today, supplemented by adding in AI, or redesigning everything around technology, we should instead continue developing and assuring genuine graduate capability for the world which is rapidly being transformed by AI.
Why reinterpret rather than replace?
One of the questions we have been asked frequently over the past few years is whether AI requires a separate graduate quality or even a completely new set of graduate qualities. We would like to take a different approach. One of the key propositions in the green paper is that AI does not require an additional graduate quality for “AI literacy” or a new definition of teaching excellence. The qualities that have characterised a Sydney education remain meaningful and relevant. Deep disciplinary expertise, critical thinking, communication, cultural competence, ethical judgement and leadership are in fact more important in an AI-enabled world. Similarly, the capabilities expected of excellent educators remain unchanged in their intent. Great educators still design meaningful learning experiences, support students to succeed, assess learning effectively and authentically, develop the employability and personal qualities of graduates, and contribute to educational leadership.
The challenge therefore is to enhance these capabilities by reinterpreting them for a world in which AI and other emerging technologies increasingly shape how knowledge is created, applied and shared, and how capable leaders are nurtured. AI raises the standard expected of every existing graduate quality.
For example, critical thinking and problem solving ability increasingly includes working thoughtfully and effectively with AI, appreciating its limitations, biases and errors, and exercising independent judgement. Similarly, developing an integrated professional, ethical and personal identity increasingly requires ensuring graduates act with integrity and accountability in the use of AI and other emerging technologies while considering their ethical, social and environmental implications. At the same time, graduates need to be able to influence, helping shape and be responsible for beneficial use of emerging technologies in their professions, communities and society.
These examples illustrate a broader shift from simply using technology to exercising judgement, acting responsibly and contributing positively to society in a world where AI is increasingly present. AI raises the standard both for us, as a university and as individual educators, and for our students.
Developing, demonstrating and assuring capability
At the heart of the green paper is the simple proposition that universities need to focus on developing, demonstrating and assuring the capabilities graduates need to succeed and lead in an AI-infused world. If AI does not change the purpose of the University or the qualities we value in graduates and educators, what does need to change? The green paper proposes that the answer lies in how we design learning, assessment, curriculum and the wider student experience. It proposes a set of principles that reflect both enduring educational values and the challenges posed by a rapidly changing world.
Perhaps counterintuitively, the more capable AI becomes the more important human capability becomes.
Some of these principles focus on what should remain constant. Perhaps counterintuitively, the more capable AI becomes the more important human capability becomes. As technology becomes ever more pervasive with software designed to mimic social interaction, learning must remain fundamentally relational, grounded in connections between students, educators and communities. Trust and integrity remain essential if qualifications are to credibly represent capability and achievement.
Other principles recognise the new challenges universities must address. All students and educators need equitable access to the tools, opportunities and support required to succeed in an AI-infused world. Education must also remain relevant to contemporary professions, workplaces and society, preparing graduates not only for today’s roles but also for careers and challenges that will continue to evolve throughout their lives.
Together, these principles provide a foundation for a broader conversation about what excellent education should look like at Sydney. They are then translated into action through five connected domains.
- Student capability focuses on the knowledge, skills, attributes and dispositions our graduates need to thrive in an AI-infused world.
- Learning experience considers how learning can become more active, personalised and relational while preserving the human elements that students value most.
- Assessment explores how universities can simultaneously support capability development and provide trusted assurance of achievement.
- Educator capability recognises that excellent AI-aware education depends on excellent educators who can design learning, develop judgement and assure capability, and are supported and recognised to do so.
- Student experience extends beyond curriculum and assessment to include support, belonging, wellbeing and employability.
Taken together, these domains move the conversation beyond AI as a technology issue. They encourage us to think about education as an integrated system, where graduate capability, educator capability, curriculum, assessment and the student experience work together to prepare students for a rapidly changing world.
This is not intended as an ‘AI strategy’. It is an education strategy for an AI-infused world.
A conversation about Sydney’s future
Alongside more detailed descriptions of the principles and domains outlined above, the green paper presents possible and sometimes provocative changes that we could implement in teaching, assessment, the curriculum and the wider student experience. It has us asking a series of important questions, including:
- What capabilities should distinguish Sydney graduates?
- What capabilities do educators need?
- How should learning, assessment and the student experience evolve?
- Where should Sydney seek to lead nationally and internationally?
At the University of Sydney, we have an opportunity to respond to the future of education and help shape it. Whether AI ultimately proves as transformative as some predict is almost beside the point. The capabilities that distinguish successful graduates and effective educators have always evolved alongside changes in society, technology and work.
How do we ensure a Sydney degree remains a trusted signal of capability, character and potential in an AI-infused world? The purpose of this green paper is to begin that conversation.
Join the conversation
Over the coming months, we will be consulting widely across faculties, schools, student bodies, and governance groups before publishing a final strategy in November.
We want to hear your thoughts on the provocative ideas and questions raised in the paper:
- Read: Download the Education in the age of AI Green Paper
- Feedback: Submit your comments via the online feedback form (internal University of Sydney students and staff only). If you are external to the University, please feel free to email [email protected] with input.
