1. Introduction
2. AI and Cultural Awareness in Education
3. Embracing AI in Education
4. Saving Heritage Languages: Policy Change(s) and the Positioning of Languages
5. AI and the Human Agency in Culture, Psychology, Ethics, and Education: Perspectives from the IAFOR Community
6. Conclusion
7. Conference Networking & Cultural Events
IAFOR launched its inaugural conference in Malaysia with The 5th Southeast Asian Conference on Education (SEACE2025) at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and online, from February 21 to 25, 2025. The event was organised in collaboration with the IAFOR Research Centre at the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) at Osaka University, Japan, and supported by the Malaysia Convention and Exhibition Bureau (MyCEB) The conference welcomed 232 delegates from 41 countries, representing 173 institutions and organisations worldwide.
A major theme of the conference centred on AI and human agency. Identified as one of IAFOR’s themes for 2025-2029, the presentations at SEACE2025 continued the discussions on AI from previous conferences and addressed AI and its intersection with culture, mental health, and education. The overarching question raised at the conference was not whether AI should be a part of culture, mental health, or education, but how to create appropriate opportunities to integrate AI into these contexts. AI is here to stay, and the limited use of AI may lead to opportunity costs, while overusing may cause risks. With AI’s rising capacity to assist humans in various aspects, the conference’s keynote speakers and delegates agreed that it should not replace human presence, but rather complement it. Humans have the agency to control the extent of AI usage, from imposing necessary policies to exercising critical thinking, a skill that makes us human. Moreover, human representations in the process of integrating AI into our daily lives should not be overlooked.
Cultural awareness is of the utmost importance when discussing AI. Dr Mary Hattori of the East-West Center, United States, presented how inclusive, Indigenous-led AI design helped preserve the cultures of Pacific Islanders. In the educational context, Dr Peter Leong of the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, United States, led the team in a panel discussion and highlighted the importance of integrating AI in creating a culturally relevant pedagogy. Dr Chih-Pu Dai addressed the curriculum gaps, noting that students often learn how to generate content with AI but lack training in ethical and critical evaluation. Dr Shamila Janakiraman added that AI literacy should include understanding biases in data training, as well as the environmental costs of the computation. Professor Michael Menchaca concluded the panel with a statement that the most important point is to understand and utilise technology to build cultural and technological awareness and relevance (Section 2).
In Malaysian context, Dr Nurhasmiza Sazalli of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia, shared the rare attitudinal resistance to adopting AI among teachers in rural areas. While the local government offered AI access to all teachers, many resisted due to the lack of training and did not realise AI’s potential. Instead, they assumed that adopting AI would overwhelm them with technological complexities and would be an extra task that might not benefit them. Dr Sazalli’s intervention introduced personalised, task-based training sessions designed to
demonstrate AI’s relevance to teachers’ everyday needs. This practical approach led to increased confidence and positive experiences with AI among teachers in the region. However, Dr Sazalli cautioned that human creativity and judgment must always remain central in educational practice (Section 3). In addition, technology can also play an important role in preserving heritage languages in Malaysia. Professor Stefanie Shamila Pillai of Universiti Malaya, Malaysia, examined AI’s potential in assisting with language education in Malaysia, where pluralism exists alongside a decline in heritage languages. Government policies have historically shifted between promoting Malay, English, and more recently, Mandarin, leaving minority and Indigenous languages at risk. Revitalising heritage languages requires state support, community involvement, and a strategic integration of technology for curriculum development. AI can help, but the preservation of languages is ultimately a human responsibility (Section 4).
The Forum discussion session, moderated by Mr Syed Mehoob Ali of Southern Methodist University, United States, and Mr Apipol Sae-Tung of IAFOR, Japan, offered a dynamic platform for open discussion, where delegates shared personal and professional experiences with AI. A presentation by Mr Ali proposed the CALM Framework, Cultural Intelligence, Awareness, Literacy, and Managed Use, as a strategy for mitigating AI’s psychological and social risks. Delegates echoed concerns about AI’s influence on mental health, especially when it reinforces false ideas and distorts human interaction. While some participants appreciated AI’s support for reflection or communication in emotionally complex situations, others emphasised its limits and the dangers of replacing real human connections with artificial conversations (Section 5).
SEACE2025 provided a platform for interdisciplinary conversations on AI’s role in education, culture, and society, while highlighting the possibilities and pitfalls of using AI. It affirmed that while AI will continue to shape the future, its value ultimately depends on the values of those who wield it. We must rise to the challenge of using AI to amplify, not replace, human intelligence, creativity, and compassion.
The recent emergence of Generative AI, a shapeless digital intelligence that mimics human interactions, has brought us as much fear as comfort. As we progress closer to a more sophisticated level of Generative AI technology, we become afraid of it. We fear how it thinks, for we are not fully informed of the algorithms and who controls them. We fear that it would change society by replacing jobs and human interactions. Most importantly, we fear that it would destroy humanity, for the overreliance on AI would destroy critical thinking, the skill that defines us as human beings.
This fear of Generative AI has not taken us back to its pre-era. Instead, it has encouraged us to rethink our human agency in using and controlling it. At SEACE2025, keynote speakers and panellists discussed the benefits and challenges of using AI in different contexts, highlighting the role of humans in the process of integrating AI into our daily lives. The central discussion was not about what AI can do, but what we should do with AI. The speakers agreed, although on different levels, that AI is here to stay, and it should not replace humans or human intelligence.
These discussions are in line with IAFOR’s Conference Themes for 2025-2029, which are Technology and Artificial Intelligence, Humanity and Human Intelligence, Global Citizenship and Education for Peace, and Leadership. They explore the effect of AI and technologies on human intelligence, education, and everyday life, considering cultural awareness for the well-being of all. The following sections weave these themes together with insights from plenary speakers and delegates at the Forum in exploring the role of AI in promoting cultural awareness, within regional and local contexts, and in supporting individual needs in the educational context.
Communities around the world promote cultural awareness in an effort to preserve their heritage and values. It is often understood that cultural awareness aims at crosscultural understanding to promote peaceful co-existence, recognising differences in languages, religions, or values. What is lacking from this understanding is that people within a certain culture are seldom encouraged to cherish and preserve their own culture adequately. The panel presentation titled ‘Promoting Cultural Awareness in Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable Education: East-West Collaboration’ by the East-West Center and the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa shared how AI is being used to promote cultural awareness in the Pacific Islands context.
Dr Mary Hattori of the East-West Center, United States, showcased the development and successful implementation of AI in addressing environmental and cultural issues. In the Pacific Islands, an Indigenous-centred AI design emerged from a 20week discussion with leaders across many Indigenous societies. Working together under the Pacific Islands Development Program, members of 20 Pacific Islands governments are working toward achieving the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent, aimed at protecting the natural environment, resources, livelihoods, faiths, cultural values and traditional knowledge of the Pacific Islands. W ith regional government collaboration, AI has been implemented to collect and analyse data on bird species, population size, and migratory movements. AI also contributed to the preservation of the Rapa Nui language, an endangered language increasingly displaced by Spanish among the younger generations on Easter Island. A team led by the Center for Artificial Intelligence and Applied Anthropology Studies at the University of Chile, Chile, together with Rapa Nui speakers, individuals, educators, elders, and related organisations, joined together in producing a free Rapa NuiSpanish AI translator. Dr Hattori recommended that effective AI strategies and policies should reflect the needs, values, and aspirations, and make sure that local voices are heard and are a part of the conversation and the development of AI.
2.1. ‘AI is Neither Good nor Bad, but on a Spectrum’
In the educational context, AI is implemented into culturally relevant pedagogy to promote cultural awareness and the use of AI in achieving educational outcomes. Dr Peter Leong of the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa proposed that while learning achievements should be the priority of pedagogy, it should also equip students with cultural competence and critical consciousness. According to Dr Leong, being culturally competent means encouraging students to not only build their own ethnicity and culture but also to appreciate and accept other diverse cultures as well. Moreover, it should encourage students to have critical consciousness – being able to identify and solve real-world problems, especially those that result in societal inequalities. Hence, culturally relevant pedagogy is an approach to teaching that uses the students’ cultural knowledge and backgrounds to affirm their cultural identity and develop critical perspectives that challenge inequities in schools and other institutions.
Dr Leong proposed that the moderate use of AI will help in yielding expected outcomes. ‘AI is neither good nor bad, but on a spectrum,’ said Dr Leong, explaining that underuse of AI will bring opportunity costs while overuse may pose risks. Dr Leong raised an example of teaching computer science in the Pacific Islands where resources and training are limited and computing is not considered relevant to some communities. Dr Leong and his team proposed a ‘culturally relevant computing’ pedagogy, positioning learning about culture in and of itself as an outcome that is as important as learning about computing. The core concepts of this pedagogy are within the ‘Nā Hopena A’o’ – a Hawaiian native framework that emphasises developing skills and behaviours for academic success in the Hawaiian context. Using this framework as a cultural drive helped engage students and make education accessible to them, as well as offer skill development opportunities for educators.
Dr Chih-Pu Dai of the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa added that AI in the Hawaiian context should be ‘locally committed, globally prepared.’ With the recent increasing demand for AI skills in job markets, it is critical to prepare teachers and students to have relevant skills in computer science. Many courses focus on coding AI models but do not teach students to evaluate AI outputs critically, and students are more inclined to use Generative AI to complete their work without acknowledging the appropriate and ethical use of it. The challenge is less on access than the lack of standardisation of AI literacy curriculum, assessment, and critical evaluation of what AI generates for them.
Being AI-literate in the educational context means more than just being critical about the outputs. Dr Shamila Janakiraman of the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa cautioned us to be aware that AI outputs are found to be trained with biased data that perpetuates stereotypes and social inequality. It can generate ‘hallucinations’ in images and provide false information in its outputs. Moreover, AI can lessen cultural competence, as students are more inclined to have more interactions with AI than their real-life peers. The tendency of overreliance on AI may lessen the chance for collaborative learning that helps students better learn and retain information, causing students to lose their capacity to think critically, creatively, and work cooperatively.
Moreover, the effects of overusing AI extend to sustainable development issues. Dr Janakiraman argued as an electronic engineer that a one-word search in AI can consume energy up to 10 times that of a regular Google search. The more the students use AI to do all of their homework, the more energy they consume. Water that is used for cooling the massive data centres Generative AI relies on for power returns to the ocean with higher temperatures, affecting sea life. In this sense, being AI-literate is more than being critical of how it affects classrooms; it is also about how it affects society in a wider perspective.
To Dr Janakiraman, the indirect path to being AI-literate in all aspects is to minimise the use of AI. Students should be informed about which AI tools to use, why they should or should not be used, and encouraged to use them at their discretion. She designed a ‘service learning project’ that minimises the use of AI, whereby students were tasked to visit communities that require help with educational and cultural needs, and AI was limited only to data analysis. Similarly, Dr Leong limited the use of AI only to the brainstorming stage, but not for completing assignments, and students had to include the conversation transcript with AI alongside their final submission.
Professor Michael Menchaca of the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa concluded the panel, stating that the most important outcome is to build cultural awareness and technological capacity and to understand cultural importance and its relevance to technology. As the panellists have demonstrated, we understand and utilise technology differently, so we should avoid comparison in different contexts. Instead, the focus should be on the opportunities these technologies could bring and how the culture embraces and adopts these technologies. Ultimately, it all comes down to human agency in understanding what we are doing and why we are doing it, which will help us understand or determine which technologies to choose.
Despite the opportunities that come with the use of Generative AI, especially in the field of education, some teachers are hesitant to use it. The reason for this is not the credibility of its outputs, but rather the lack of awareness of the opportunities that come with it. In the featured presentation ‘Turning Hesitation into Action: Inspiring Rural Area Teachers to Embrace AI in Education’, Dr Nurhasmiza Sazalli of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia, shared effective strategies for introducing AI in rural schools. Dr Sazalli argued that AI is the answer to the problem of the limited resources and support that teachers in rural areas receive. With the capacity to lessen the time spent on administrative work and putting together learning materials, introducing AI would be beneficial to teachers in lightening their workloads and allowing them more time to engage with students, which will enhance teaching and learning quality.
In the case of Malaysia, the problem of the underusage of AI is not about limited access, but about attitudinal resistance and fear. All government-employed teachers in Malaysia have access to the Digital Education Learning Initiative Malaysia (DELIMa), which allows them to plan lessons, collaborate with other teachers, or give assessments and feedback to students. In 2024, the government added an AI function to DELIMa, but many teachers were not enthusiastic about adopting AI. Furthermore, there was no hands-on or proper training other than a few videos included in the platform. Hence, even with the tool in place, they are afraid to use it: teachers were overwhelmed by the complexities of new technologies and afraid of the unknown, for AI was a foreign idea to them. They were also afraid of making mistakes when using AI because they thought that AI was offered only in English. Additionally, they viewed learning about AI as an extra workload to their already overwhelming tasks as educators, and, more importantly, that AI could be a threat to their careers.
To address this fear and resistance to technology, Dr Sazalli launched a project to train rural teachers to use AI in education. The training encouraged teachers to think about everyday problems and use AI as a solution by aligning it with everyday tasks, such as creating lesson plans, organising class activities, or generating quizzes. The training is personalised and interactive, with the facilitator providing guidance in small groups to address specific concerns. Dr Sazalli emphasised that the key is to train teachers to use proper prompts to get the output, as teachers may lack confidence in using AI when they do not get expected outputs. By the end of the training, Dr Sazalli reported that the teachers gained more confidence in using AI in simple tasks. With the extra time they had, they were able to engage more in refining the lesson plans AI generated for them, leading to an enhanced learning experience among the students, complete with personalised learning materials. ‘Why is it only now that I learnt about AI? We should have known [about AI] a long time ago,’ said a teacher in one of the training sessions.
Despite all the benefits and opportunities AI brought, Dr Sazalli reminded us that ‘although AI can assist, nothing surpasses human creativity and knowledge,’ highlighting the importance of human agency in integrating AI into education.
‘Language transcends everything we do,’ said Professor Stefanie Shamila Pillai of Universiti Malaya, Malaysia, at the start of her keynote presentation ‘Rethinking Language Education: Lessons from Malaysia’. Language shapes human thoughts, mediates how humans communicate, and acts as a tool for humans to pass on their heritage. In a country where pluralism exists, one or more languages may dominate the others: in Malaysia, where over 131 languages are spoken, only four languages are at the forefront. Malay was designated as the national, official language, and is used by the majority of the Malay ethnicity. English represents Malaysia’s historical legacy and has become the compulsory language taught in schools. As a result, it is widely used within urban Kuala Lumpur. Mandarin Chinese has recently gained significant importance in job markets, and Tamil is also widely spoken, by about 10% of the population. In the educational context, students in Malaysia’s public school systems have the choice to enrol in a primary school where one of these four languages is used as a medium, before they transition to a Malay-medium curriculum in secondary school and an English-dominant curriculum during tertiary education.
Languages in a pluralist society dictate the identities of people and their ability for social mobility. Given its historical background, English was used as the medium of administration in the Catholic school system in Malaysia and is viewed as the language of the privileged. In local schools where Chinese or Arabic were used as a medium, English became a preferred language, as it opened doors to wider job opportunities after graduation that raised a person’s social status. However, English prominence dropped during the 1960s, and Malay was designated as the official language in an effort to build national identity after independence. The language transition also affected Malaysia’s education system, where schools gradually became Malay-medium at the beginning of the 1970s, though it wasn’t until the 1980s that all schools fully adopted Malay as the medium of instruction. However, when Malaysia’s social development grew during the 1990s, government policies switched to promoting the use of English at the university level.
Regardless of government policies, it is deeply ingrained in people that English is the ‘number one’ language. In contrast to the public education system, private international schools have historically offered courses in English. English is considered the language of education and of employability, preferred by most employment sectors in private companies and public services. Public perception of private schools has changed from a place of academic failure to a school of opportunities, as job placement rates are higher in international school graduates, owing to the English-medium curriculum. Recently, Chinese schools and the Chinese language have grown in popularity due to Malaysia’s rising economic and social relations with China. This change has resulted in divisions in the education landscape and a wider gap of socioeconomic differences caused by language differences.
For Professor Pillai, what concerns Malaysia’s many other languages, especially heritage languages, is that there is no interest or policy in incorporating them into the school system. In schools where a third language is offered, it is often an international language such as French, German, Korean, or Japanese, among others, but not a heritage language. As other languages are on the rise, heritage languages, which consist of about 84% of all languages in Malaysia, are in a downward spiral. To Professor Pillai, the death and birth of languages are natural phenomena. However, from the language education perspective, she viewed language education as not just about language proficiency. ‘[Language education] affects everything. We have to think about it as an ecology. We cannot think about it in terms of ‘just’ a language curriculum,’ said Professor Pillai.
Language education should consider which languages matter and to whom. Quoting Noam Chomsky, Professor Pillai emphasised that ‘Language is not just words. It’s a culture, a tradition, a unification of a community, a whole history that creates what a community is. It’s all embodied in a language,’ She proposed that support from the government in terms of policy and resources is crucial in revitalising heritage languages, including bringing heritage languages into the school system. As a language educator, she advocated for a community-led heritage language education to develop language curricula and integrate technology in producing learning materials.
Weaving the plenary programmes together is the Forum, an open discussion for delegates to share and discuss their own perspectives on AI and its intersection with other educational and societal issues. The Forum discussion started off with a presentation titled ‘Human and Artificial Intelligence: Questions of Culture, Psychology, Ethics and Education’ by Mr Syed Mehboob Ali of Southern Methodist University, United States, which emphasised the physical and psychological effects AI has on humanity. Besides reducing human interactions and human intelligence, Mr Ali pointed out that AI has impacted humanity’s self-esteem. Many have become increasingly reliant on AI to validate our thoughts and decisions. The AI within algorithms serves us with repeated content of social media successes and unrealistic beauty standards, which has led many to compare our realities with overt social media content. Moreover, AI has contributed to the spread of false information on social media platforms, which young and older adults take as the source of truthful information. Alarmingly, some young users took AI’s advice to take their parents’ and their own lives.
Mr Ali pointed to the pitfalls of AI, saying that while it has great potential to change the world, it is ‘impacting us as humans in ways that maybe we just don’t understand right now.’ To tackle this AI issue, he proposed the CALM Framework to proactively promote mental wellness in dealing with the impact of AI and social media on mental health and human relationships:
• Cultural intelligence: Engage with communities to ensure cultural relevance across demographics
• Awareness-driven: Raise awareness of AI and its psychological effects in daily life
• Literacy and Education: Promote AI literacy and encourage healthy engagement with AI among teachers and students in the school and at-home context
• Managed Use: Partner with mental health professionals and AI developers to ensure ethical designs that consider mental health implications for users
The bottom line of the framework and all AI efforts is how to use AI to enhance our society rather than let it affect us negatively.
The Forum discussion began with delegates being asked to share their experience about using AI in their daily lives. The first question asked delegates to share surprising or creative ways in which they have used AI in their daily lives. On the positive side, a delegate working as a Talent Developer in an IT Department at a university in India shared her view that AI should be used to do something fun to promote a positive attitude, as frustrations grew among AI users at the university:
At some point, we came to the conclusion that everybody felt overwhelmed, and actually they felt sick and tired of all that AI literacy and more advanced education that we were trying to feed them… on top of those AI efforts that you’re trying to implement at your universities or companies, just do something for fun because it helps to reset attitude.
– A delegate from India
On the other end of the spectrum, delegates shared their negative, surprising experiences with the use of AI, claiming that it did not and cannot help them with their tasks with the promised output:
I had a disappointing, surprising experience with AI where I tried to use a software that promised to generate perfect slides based on a script I fed it. It was visually impressive and beautiful. [However,] the content, to me, as the knowledge holder of that particular script, was very random, and it didn’t make sense to me… that discouraged me from using that as a simple task of putting slides together.
– A delegate from Japan
Most of the AI I use for producing any type of graphic sucks… they’re graphically appealing but have all kinds of hallucinations in them.
– A delegate from Hong Kong
At a more personal level, we asked if the delegates felt comfortable talking about their personal problems with AI. A delegate from India shared her concern that overreliance on AI may not be ideal for users to solve their problems:
I’m more like a person who wants real connections. When we are using AI so much, our emotional intelligence is somewhat going down.
– A delegate from India
However, several delegates found talking to AI a sensible solution for people who may have trouble sharing their personal issues with their peers, have low conversational skills, or want wider perspectives:
Something happened at work, and I was in my head about it for a while. I don’t really want to discuss this with anyone at work, and I don’t think I want to discuss this with friends. So I thought, let me ask ChatGPT what it thinks… So I just wrote the situation out and asked ChatGPT, and I felt like I got good advice.
– A delegate from India
There are a lot of people who are not very good at speaking to people at all. Speaking to an AI, not even about your problems, or just talking about things, is a very soft and safe way to practice conversation…
– A delegate from Japan
Why not? It’s easier, I can get wider perspectives. But of course, I do not rely on responses from ChatGPT, I also ask my colleagues who know me…
– A delegate from the Philippines
In exploring the intersection of AI, culture, and mental health, and the proposed CALM Framework, we asked the delegates whether AI-powered mental health tools could be used in multicultural classrooms. The result showed that 18% said Yes, 38% No, and 44% Maybe. Among the majority of the respondents, access to resources is the main concern:
I would be inclined to say maybe because it would be a good start to recommend services or resources, but I wouldn’t want AI to be diagnosing or giving counselling. If you’re someone who’s isolated, it might be just a good stepping stone.
– A delegate from Japan
One of the things that made me consider a maybe is sometimes people don’t get the services they need from institutions in which they’re involved, and that can include public schools… but what is the AI system? Who’s designing it? Who’s controlling it? Those are some important considerations. But certainly, people should be able to find support services that are appropriate.
– A delegate from the United States
Regardless of their view, human agency is still the most important factor in addressing these intersections:
I said it’s a no because mental health issues or mental well-being is something very important. It could lead a person to any extent… Nothing is better than humans, is what I feel… It’s only humans who have to take care and not the AI.
– A delegate from India
I put yes. As a start, let’s just use the technology and then we humans come in. Let’s just use AI to give us what they have and then we humans come in to really decide what is the best solution.
– A delegate from Malaysia
AI can actually help professional counsellors, but it should not replace them… It can be used for early detection of students’ mental health issues, but the intervention must still come from a professional because nothing can replace humans, not even AI.
– A delegate from the Philippines
However, one issue with humans is that we have different interpretations of values based on backgrounds, beliefs, and oftentimes, biases. The important issue is how we can be aware of cultural differences in different contexts. We asked delegates to choose a student leader in a multicultural classroom based on several types of leadership, whether it should be merit-based, harmonious collaboration, or equal opportunities. The responses showed how educators have their own interpretations of leadership values:
Depending on the size of the group and what the parameters of the project are, different students are going to be more skilled or competent in different areas.
– A delegate from Australia
I would like to see every student of mine, how capable he or she is. Every person must have a chance to represent themselves, their cognitive abilities, and their professional abilities.
– A delegate from Pakistan
As someone that perhaps sits in corporate America or in the business environment, probably the most skilled, outspoken, confident, or experienced person would win out the most… but as academics, as teachers, we want to make sure that our students are getting that [leadership] experience.
– A delegate from the United States
I just asked ChatGPT which one. What it did is it gave me the rationale for all three, depending on the goal of the project.
– A delegate from Hong Kong
In the final part of the Forum, we asked the delegates to reflect on their roles in preventing AI from reinforcing cultural biases and ensuring it promotes inclusivity in ethics and well-being in the educational context. How can they influence policymakers to be proactive in training AI to be culturally intelligent? In the word cloud response, the top answers were AI and Awareness, followed by Ethical and Developing Critical Thinking and Teachers, among others. The live responses highlighted the importance of human agency and the ability to think critically:
I put up “teacher”… As a teacher, at the end of the day, you still have the authority, the power to control how your classroom is run. You’re able to direct it in a particular direction, and if you fail, you learn from it, you come back again, and you develop and improve yourself on how to prevent making the same mistakes… It’s still your classroom, and as educators, it’s your way.
– A delegate from Japan
I say reevaluating in the sense that whatever AI says, we shouldn’t take the suggestions fully. As someone who knows the classroom and the students better, we take suggestions from AI with a pinch of salt and decide what’s best for our classroom.
– A delegate from Malaysia
The key takeaway from the Forum discussion is that humans should not be taken out of the process of integrating AI into a given context. Some of the word cloud responses, such as ‘understanding”, ‘respect’, and ‘awareness’, reflected the key points that we as humans realised are the main concerns for our interaction with AI in enhancing our society. We should reinforce critical thinking skills to interact with AI constructively.
SEACE2025 demonstrated that the conversation around AI in education is no longer about whether it should be used, but how, when, and for what purposes. The conference reaffirmed that AI is not a neutral tool: it reflects the assumptions, biases, and goals of those who design and deploy it. While the technology holds significant promise for enhancing learning, supporting cultural preservation, and addressing educational inequities, it also poses serious risks if not applied critically and ethically. The limited use of AI technology will hinder the opportunities that may be beneficial to humans, while overreliance on it can undermine cultural identities, replace human interaction, and erode critical thinking, all of which are essential to human development.
Throughout the conference, delegates and speakers agreed that the integration of AI must remain grounded in human agency and cultural sensitivity. Case studies from the Pacific Islands, Malaysia, and multicultural classrooms around the world showed how localised and culturally embedded approaches to AI are not only possible but necessary. AI should be designed with community input, used to complement, not replace, human educators, and evaluated continuously to ensure it serves educational and ethical goals. The conference further highlighted the urgent need for AI literacy, not just as a technical skill but as a broader educational goal that encompasses environmental awareness, cultural competence, and mental health considerations.
In conclusion, the human element remains irreplaceable. AI may assist and amplify, but it is people—educators, students, and communities—who will ultimately determine whether AI becomes a force for inclusion, understanding, and empowerment in the educational context.
7.1.
As part of the cultural programme at SEACE2025, delegates visited the Kuala Lumpur Craft Complex, a vibrant hub dedicated to preserving and promoting Malaysia’s rich heritage of traditional arts and crafts. Located in the heart of the city, the complex is managed by the Malaysian Handicraft Development Corporation (Kraftangan Malaysia) under the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture. The delegates joining the cultural tour experienced batik painting, one of Malaysia’s diverse artisanal traditions, in a hands-on workshop. The Craft Complex houses a wide range of galleries, craft shops, demonstration studios, and cultural spaces where artisans and visitors can interact directly. It offers a unique opportunity to explore traditional crafts such as batik, songket weaving, wood carving, metalwork, and ceramics, all produced by skilled local craftsmen. These spaces not only showcase the artistic excellence of Malaysia’s multicultural heritage but also support sustainable livelihoods and craft entrepreneurship.
Delegates remarked on the significance of cultural institutions like the Kuala Lumpur Craft Complex in maintaining cultural continuity while embracing innovation. In a world where digital technologies often overshadow traditional knowledge, the Craft Complex offered a compelling case for the enduring relevance of cultural practices and their potential to enrich educational and technological dialogues.
Back at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, the Pre-Conference programme offered delegates a chance to join in the Magunatip Dance Workshop led by the National Department for Culture & Arts, Ministry of Tourism Malaysia dance troupe. Magunatip is a traditional dance from Sabah, a state in northern Borneo, East Malaysia, characterised by the rhythmic clapping of two or more bamboo poles and dancers moving swiftly and precisely between them in time with the claps. The performance captivated audiences with the playfulness of the instrument and the challenge of agility and quick reflexes. Delegates were guided through the stages of the dance, from slow and simple dance steps to faster and more advanced stages. The dancers’ synchronisation with the tempo is remarkable, though the risk of mistiming a step can result in injury. Historically, the Magunatip was more than entertainment: it was performed in healing rituals and warrior ceremonies. It is traditionally believed that loud sounds could drive away evil spirits and that the dance welcomed home victorious warriors while intimidating rival groups. Though its association with ancient spiritual beliefs has diminished, the dance remains a powerful representation of Sabah heritage, the community’s values, history, and resilience.
On the plenary day of the conference, a full-scale and interactive performance kicked off in the morning. The performance started with a dance featuring costumes and music representing ethnicities within Malaysia. After the performance, the delegates were invited to join a Malaysian Blowgun demonstration, a traditional weapon with long bamboo pipes and darts used for hunting in Borneo. A set of balloons was used as the target for the delegates to experience the blowgun. Afterwards, the Magunatip performers, dressed up in tribal costumes, took over the stage and performed the fullscale Magunatip dance as the final performance.
The Conference Dinner was hosted at Bijan Bar & Restaurant, a renowned establishment in Kuala Lumpur known for its refined take on authentic Malay cuisine. Surrounded by warm lighting and the vibrant charm of Malaysian hospitality, delegates enjoyed an evening of delicious local specialities—from perfectly grilled satay to rich rendang and traditional coconut-based desserts. The relaxed atmosphere provided the perfect backdrop for lively conversation and forming meaningful connections among delegates, plenary speakers, and IAFOR Executives, making the dinner a memorable moment of the conference.
Date of creation: March 21, 2025
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Experiences, Pedagogy, Practice & Praxis (24)
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Date of creation: March 25, 2025
Your feedback plays a vital role in shaping the future of IAFOR conferences. Guided by the Japanese principle of 'kaizen' — a commitment to continuous, incremental improvement — we strive to enhance the delegate experience. The data presented in this report was collected from 60 respondents out of 244 delegates within 30 days of the conclusion of the event.
PRE-CONFERENCE COMMUNICATION & SUPPORT RATING RECOMMENDATION
84% of the delegates would recommend the IAFOR event to a friend or a colleague
80% of delegates have attended an IAFOR conference before
CONFERENCE EXPERIENCE RATING CONFERENCE SATISFACTION
88% of delegates are satisfied or content with the event
“An incredibly well-organised conference with insightful sessions, warm hospitality, and a fantastic cultural programme. A great platform for learning, sharing, and making meaningful connections.”
MOTIVATION FOR ATTENDING
ACADEMIC QUALITY RATING
This post-conference survey is sent to all attendees, aimed at evaluating various aspects of SEACE2025 from preconference support to academic quality and networking opportunities.
In a post conference survey sent to all delegates, we asked attendees the questions below:
Before the conference (Q1-Q5): Evaluating submission, registration, and communication processes
Q1 Please rate your experience with the submission and review system.
Q2 Please rate the quality of the information provided on the website.
Q3 Please rate the quality of the information provided in the emails you received.
Q4 Please rate the registration process.
Q5 How would you rate the overall pre-conference support you received?
Academic Quality (Q6-Q8): Assessing plenary sessions, parallel presentations, and content relevance
Q6 Please rate the quality of the plenary sessions and featured presentations.
Q7 Please rate the quality of the conference parallel presentations.
Q8 Please rate the overall content of the conference (academic quality, relevance, diversity).
Conference Experience (Q9-Q13): Measuring hospitality, networking opportunities, and overall satisfaction
Q9 Please rate the conference hospitality and ambience.
Q10 Please rate the opportunities to connect with fellow participants during the conference.
Q11 Please rate your overall networking experience at the conference.
Q12 Please rate your overall conference experience.
Q13 Considering your complete experience at our conference, how likely would you be to recommend us to a friend or a colleague?
We have received 48 responses out of 483 delegates. Below is an overview of the results.
Overall Score by Attendee Types
Overall (n=60)
Onsite (n=51)
Data as of March 26, 2025, 10:00 JST
Delegates attending the SEACE2025 found the overall pre-conference support helpful. They have received informative information from IAFOR prior to joining the conference, rating information provided on the website at 4.33 out of 5. The submission system was found to be easy to use by 88.33 percent of the respondents. Our email communication was timely and clear, with an overall score of 97.50 percent. The registration system was straightforward, with over 85.00 percent of the respondents rating it at 4.45 out of 5. The conference performs well in terms of academic content delivery, with an overall score of 87.00 percent. The plenary sessions and featured presentations were found to be engaging, with overall 83.67 percent satisfaction. As for the delegates’ presentation, 93.33 percent of the respondents found parallel presentations to be well-prepared and informative.
IAFOR is a platform for international, intercultural, and interdisciplinary collaborations. Overall, 96.67 percent of the respondents found the conference to be a good networking opportunity. Delegates attending the conference onsite found the networking experience to be a good opportunity to build connections, with over 84.31 percent satisfaction. Our conference’s hospitality and ambience is pleasant and inviting, with a 4.43 out of 5 rating from the respondents.
Overall, delegates rated the conference experience at 4.43 out of 5, an 88.67 percent satisfaction. Delegates are highly likely to recommend IAFOR conferences to their peers, 84.33 percent. We appreciate all the feedback provided and look forward to welcoming you to future events. For more details, please visit www.iafor.com/ conferences.
Individual Responses
Sorted by Total Score
5
5
5
5
