Introduction
Teaching in the twenty-first century is no longer the same as it was a generation ago. Classrooms across Africa and the rest of the world have changed dramatically, not only because students are different, but also because the world that students will enter after school has changed. One of the most important changes in recent years is the arrival of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools in everyday life and, increasingly, in schools. Students in Lagos, Nairobi, Accra, Cairo, and Cape Town, just like their counterparts in London or New York, now carry smartphones that give them access to AI chatbots (Bala, 2025; Ekemode, 2025). This reality means that teachers and curriculum designers must think carefully about how AI should be used in classrooms in ways that help rather than harm learning.
