What you need to know about digital learning and transformation of education
OFFICIO e Ambiente - Inovar
Digital technology has become a social necessity to ensure education as a basic human right, especially in a world experiencing more frequent crises and conflicts. During the COVID-19 pandemic, countries without sufficient ICT infrastructure and well-resourced digital learning systems suffered the greatest education disruptions and learning losses. This situation left as many as one third of students around the world without access to learning during the school closures for more than a year. The COVID-19 education disruption clearly revealed the urgent need to ally technologies and human resources to transform schooling models and to build inclusive, open and resilient learning systems. UNESCO supports the use of digital innovation in expanding access to educational opportunities and advancing inclusion, enhancing the relevance and quality of learning, building ICT-enhanced lifelong learning pathways, strengthening education and learning management systems, and monitoring learning processes. To achieve these goals, UNESCO works to develop digital literacy and digital competencies with a focus on teachers and students.
What is UNESCO’s approach to this work?
UNESCO takes a humanistic approach to ensure that technology will be designed to serve people in accordance with internationally agreed human rights frameworks, and that digital technologies will be leveraged as a common good to support the achievement of SDG 4 – Education 2030 and to build shared futures of education beyond 2030. UNESCO promotes digital inclusion to centre most marginalized groups including females, low-income groups, people with disabilities as well as linguistic and cultural minority communities. UNESCO guides international efforts to help countries understand the role that technology can play to accelerate progress toward the education goal, Sustainable Development Goal 4, as envisioned in the 2015 Qingdao Declaration and the 2017 Qingdao Statement, 2019 Recommendation on Open Educational Resources, 2019 Beijing Consensus on AI and Education, and 2021 UNESCO Strategy on Technological Innovation in Education (2022 - 2025). UNESCO supports its Member States to design, integrate and implement effective national policies and masterplans on digital learning making sure activities on the ground answer the needs of each country and community with a special focus on disadvantaged populations.