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Promoting inclusiveness, accessibility and quality in digital education
At the invitation of Mr. Huai Jinpeng, Minister of Education of China, Amb. Simona-Mirela Miculescu, President of the 42nd General Conference of UNESCO, attended, from 29 to 31 January, the 2024 World Digital Education Conference, held in Shanghai, China.
Co-hosted by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese National Commission for UNESCO and the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government, the Conference brought together over 600 participants, including Ministers and high-level officials in charge of education, representatives of relevant UN agencies and non-governmental organizations, academics, professors and teachers at all levels of education, digital technology experts and scholars, and representatives of private sector.
Under the generic title “Digital Education: Application, Sharing, and Innovation”, the Conference focused on a wide range of topics, including improvement of digital literacy and competency of teachers; education digitalization; global trends on digital education development and evaluation index; artificial intelligence and digital ethics; challenges and opportunities of digital transformation for primary education, and; digital governance in education.
Organized as a follow up to the UN Transforming Education Summit which identified digital transformation in education as one of the five priority areas for action, the Conference provided new insights in ensuring that the digital revolution provides benefits for all learners.
In her speech at the Opening ceremony of the Conference, Amb. Miculescu acknowledged the profound importance of digital education, as a powerful complement to traditional learning methods, enriching and transforming education. It also proved to be a crucial tool for providing learning continuity during times of crisis, as we could all witness during the global disruption caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic.
However, the President also warned about many challenges that should be addressed, such as accessibility, content and connectivity, among others. She called on policy-makers to ensure free, open, and accessible-to-all public digital learning platforms equipped with high-quality, curriculum-aligned resources, while concurrently safeguarding user privacy, safety, and data security. She also underlined the importance of ensuring inclusivity and quality of content in digital education:
A special focus should be put on gender equality issues, in order to close longstanding digital skills gender divides. Moreover, in light of the raise of hate speech and discrimination - amplified by social media - we should pay particular attention to the quality of the content on our learning platforms.
We should put the dots together and ensure, that the guiding principles stated in both the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Educational Resources - approved by the 40th GC in 2019 - and the UNESCO Recommendation on education for peace, human rights and sustainable development - approved by the 42nd GC in 2023 -, are duly taken into account, and applied in national policies and measures related to digital learning.
She recalled that the General Conference of UNESCO, at its 42nd session in November 2023, proclaimed 19 March of every year as international day for digital learning and expressed her confidence that this annual observance will provide new opportunities to stimulate concerted action, at both international and national levels, on key matters related to digital learning.
Amb. Miculescu also congratulated the People’s Republic of China for the approval by the General Conference of UNESCO, of the establishment of the UNESCO International Institute for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Education as a UNESCO Category I institute, in Shanghai.
During her visit, Amb. Miculescu also visited prestigious Tonji University, Suzhou’s magic classical gardens inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List, and the future premises of the UNESCO Category 1 Institute on STEM education.
