PkCEP 2027 Working Groups

Call for Participation in Working Group

Generative AI and Computing Higher Education in Pakistan: Challenges, Opportunities, and Risks

This year we are launching the “Working Group” (WG) feature at PkCEP. Unlike regular papers or invited talks, such WGs will bring together a group of 5-10 researchers who will collaborate intensively over a period of around 10 months under the umbrella of the PkCEP conference. The pattern will be loosely based on more established computing education conferences like ITiCSE, CompED and SIGCSE. We will have just one “proto” working group at PkCEP-2027. If you are interested in participating in the working-group, please consider applying, details follow.

Motivation and Goals

Generative AI (GenAI) has permeated many walks of life, including higher education. Perhaps more than most other modern technologies, it has the capacity to disrupt the norm of many domains. Whatever position one takes about its adoption, it is inevitable that one will have to address the issue directly and deliberately. In the context of computing education, given that it is the parent domain of AI, there are two distinct aspects of this issue:*

Education for Gen AI: what should we now be teaching in the classroom given the changing landscape of expectations from computing graduates. This aspect is unique to the computing education domain.

Gen AI for education: how can we use GenAI effectively for learning and teaching, and adapt assessments to respond to its almost universal availability. This aspect is common across learning domains, though it may present itself uniquely in the computing domain given the capacity of GenAI to produce code and now complete software solutions.

While the issue crosses borders, but there are also local considerations that should be taken into account. For a country like Pakistan, while there is a lot that can be learnt from studies done in this area already, there are specific circumstances that should be considered in addition, e.g.: being an LMIC (low- and middle-income country), individual and institutional access GenAI models, job opportunities, quality and disparity of learning outcomes, availability of local compute infrastructure, knowledge of English as a non-native language, etc. Building on prior work carried out in this area from around the world, this working group will thus work to address the specific question of Gen AI adoption for computing higher education in Pakistan.

Guiding questions and methodology

Our work will be guided by these questions:

Q1. How is Gen AI currently being used in Pakistan in computing science higher education across the three domains of curriculum, learning & teaching practices, and assessments.

Q2. With Gen AI now widely available in the workplace, what kind of knowledge, skills and dispositions does the industry in Pakistan now expect of computing graduates?

Q3. What are the opportunities, challenges, and risks associated with Gen AI use in computing education in general?

Q4. What unique opportunities, challenges, and risks are and will be encountered in a non-native English-speaking LMIC (Low- and Middle-Income country) like Pakistan?

Q5. What are the implications of the findings for computing science higher education curriculum, learning & teaching practices, and assessments?

The work will be carried out through a combination of secondary research of peer-reviewed academic literature that has already been published in this domain, wider literature and articles published specifically for Pakistan (or other LMICs), and primary research through a combination of surveys and interviews or focus groups of students, educators, and industry professionals.

Expectations of members

The working group method is a reasonably intense pattern, and members will be expected to join weekly meetings across the lifetime of the working group, and carry out any relevant tasks between them. They will be expected to join the PkCEP 2027 conference in person, and will spend 2 days prior to the conference to work on the report together in person, and will present preliminary findings at the conference.

Member eligibility selection criteria

We will be aiming for a diverse range of viewpoints and career stages when selecting members for the WG. We welcome academics and PhD students who are interested in collaborative research, and have experience in computing education research, curriculum design, scholarly learning and teaching, and/or quantitative and qualitative data analysis. Being part of the academia in Pakistan is not a requirement. They must be able and willing to commit the time and effort needed for this work. If anyone is selected but is later unable to make time for this work due to changing circumstances, we’ll ask them to consider vacating the seat for another colleague.

Application

If you are interested in contributing to this group, please apply here by the stated deadline.

Apply Now →

Outputs and Timelines

The WG will produce an abstract to be published on the PkCEP conference website, will present preliminary findings at the conference in a dedicated session, and will then submit an original manuscript for peer-review at a relevant venue. The timeline will be as follows:

Date Milestone
1 Aug 2026 Applications open for WG participation
15 Aug 2026 Applications close
22 Aug 2026 WG membership finalized, and WG starts working remotely
15 Nov 2026 WG completes an extended abstract of their work
6-7 Jan 2027 WG meets in person at conference venue for 2 days of in-person collaborative work
8 Jan 2027 WG presents preliminary findings at PkCEP 2027
31 Mar 2027 WG output submitted for external peer review, and publishes draft on arXiv

Working Group Leaders