Steering the Digital Transformation
Formal Education
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The COVID-19 pandemic
supercharged reliance on connected technology and pushed education deeper into
digital ecosystems. For much of 2020 and 2021, computers and internet
connections temporarily replaced schools and dictated whether hundreds of
millions of students could access educational opportunities.
Although many schools have
reopened, the digital transformation of education continues to accelerate. More
and more teaching and learning is moving to virtual spaces.
In this new context, connected
technology must advance aspirations for inclusive education that facilitates
sustainable development based on principles of social and economic justice,
equity, and respect for human rights.
Around the world, there are promising
examples of technology enlarging access to knowledge and information, enriching
educational processes, and improving learning outcomes. But these examples are
not common enough.
Increasingly, there are warning
signs that the digital transformation of education carries underappreciated
challenges. Teachers, students, and policy makers have witnessed the many ways
that technology can heighten learning inequality; increase student isolation;
narrow and privatize educational experiences; homogenize teaching and learning;
undermine the professional autonomy of teachers; produce harmful environmental
impacts; violate privacy and trust; and consolidate power and control outside
public oversight.
These developments are not
inevitable. New and better directions are possible.
They are also urgent.
Education cannot continue to
contort to the commercial logics that have grown up around connected
technology. Going forward, the reverse should be standard: connected technology
should contort to support education—technology must serve the educational needs
of learners, teachers, schools, families, and communities.
To help guide this effort, UNESCO
is working closely with its Member States to establish shared priorities and
principles to better leverage technology to make education more inclusive, more
equitable, more relevant, and more engaging.
Education is too important to be
left to chance. Choices and directions for the digital transformation of
education should be intentional.
The RewirEd Declaration on
Connectivity for Education will help steer the digital transformation of
education in ways that accelerate progress towards the commitments of the 2030
Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The Declaration will establish
principles and action lines to ensure that powerful digital tools strengthen
educational opportunities for all.
It will guide the education
community in its common effort to ensure that connectivity supports the right
to education in the ‘new normals’ emerging from the pandemic and at a moment
when digital spaces are, in many contexts, becoming increasingly central to our
lives and learning.
The Declaration will be put
forward for endorsement at the RewirEd Summit in December 2021.
Following the endorsement of the
Declaration, UNESCO will work closely with countries to support its practical
implementation in countries.
