HEC’s new rules on student AI use won't work

The Higher Education Commission has taken two big steps on artificial intelligence. It has notified a compulsory three-credit-hour AI course for every undergraduate and postgraduate degree in the country, starting from Fall 2026. It has also circulated a draft policy on the use of generative AI in our universities. Both steps are welcome. But the rules the draft sets for students rest on two ideas that will not hold. It bans students from submitting AI-generated work as their own, and it asks them to declare which tools they used and why. These are honest instincts. They are also unenforceable. No teacher can verify either one, and the draft admits as much when it rules, correctly, that no…