Over 60% of Indian HEIs Now Permit Student Use of AI Tools
AI is moving from pilot to practice on Indian campuses. A new survey of 30 leading higher education institutions (HEIs) finds that most are allowing student use of AI tools and embedding AI into daily teaching and operations.
The report-released by EY-Parthenon in collaboration with FICCI-also notes growing policy adoption, investments in tutoring systems, and early steps in adaptive learning and automated assessment. Progress is real, but uneven across governance, infrastructure, and faculty readiness.
What Campuses Are Doing Today
- 60%+ permit student use of AI tools.
- 56% have implemented AI-related policies.
- 53% use generative AI to develop learning materials.
- 40% run AI-powered tutoring systems and chatbots.
- 39% use adaptive learning platforms.
- 38% apply AI for automated grading.
Top use cases: content creation for teaching, on-demand tutoring via chatbots, and personalised learning systems. These deployments are already influencing curriculum design and assessment practices.
Why Governance Can't Wait
Many AI tools rely on student submissions, engagement data, or even biometric inputs. Poor data handling risks privacy breaches, regulatory penalties, and reputational damage.
- Manage data risk centrally: contracts, DPIAs, consent, retention rules, and access controls.
- Align faculty policies with institutional safeguards so educators aren't carrying the compliance load alone.
- Audit third-party tools for data flows, model training use, and content ownership before campus rollout.
Curriculum Moves That Work
Build AI literacy across every program so all graduates can use AI responsibly and effectively. Cover core concepts, ethics, digital skills, critical thinking, and practical applications.
- Non-STEM: AI use cases, prompt quality, bias and fairness, citation and disclosure norms, limits of automation.
- STEM: machine learning, NLP, robotics, model evaluation, and deployment basics embedded into core courses.
- Assessments: redesign for process transparency, staged submissions, oral defenses, and clear AI-use disclosure.
Faculty Capacity: Close the Readiness Gap
Adoption is uneven largely because staff comfort and skills differ by department. Invest in hands-on training tied to real course tasks.
- Short, role-based workshops: grading assistants, feedback automation, tutoring prompts, rubric-aligned checks.
- Peer labs and exemplars per discipline (STEM, humanities, design, management).
- Clear escalation paths for academic integrity issues involving AI.
A Practical Classroom Policy (Starter)
- Permitted uses: brainstorming, outlining, practice quizzes, code review, language support-unless restricted by the instructor.
- Required: disclosure of AI use, prompts, and generated excerpts; citation of tools and versions.
- Prohibited: fabricating sources, delegating graded original work to AI, uploading confidential data.
- Consequences: follow existing academic integrity procedures; provide a remediation path for first-time minor violations.
- Accessibility: allow AI as an approved support where it serves documented learning needs.
From Pilots to Scale: A 90-Day Plan
- Week 1-3: finalise institution-wide data governance, tool approval criteria, and vendor contracts.
- Week 4-6: publish classroom policy templates and assessment guidelines; run faculty clinics per department.
- Week 7-10: deploy tutoring/chatbot pilots in high-enrolment courses with clear success metrics.
- Week 11-13: review outcomes, expand to additional courses, and begin cross-program AI literacy modules.
Use the Maturity Model
The report introduces a diagnostic maturity model with an actionable roadmap. Treat it as a baseline: assess current use across academics, operations, governance, and staff development, then sequence investments where they remove the biggest bottlenecks first.
Resources
- EY-Parthenon and FICCI for policy and strategy context.
- AI courses by job role to accelerate faculty and staff upskilling.
Bottom line for education leaders: AI use is already mainstream on campus. Focus on clear policy, smart curriculum updates, staff capability, and institution-level data safeguards to make it effective and safe.
