The expanding presence of technology and artificial intelligence (AI) in education has been felt deeply by students, teachers, institutions, and education systems. For the foreseeable future, this expansion will not only continue, but accelerate. This brings added complexity to our defence and promotion of inclusive and equitable quality education, the status and rights of teachers and education support personnel (ESP), and democratic societies. Wherever new technologies do aid the members of the profession, we can support these technologies.
The 10th Education International (EI) World Congress meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from 29 July to 2 August 2024, recognises that:
The development and use of technology accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic and continues to gather pace with rapid advances in the field of AI;
While the integration of technology has the potential to enrich the teaching and learning process, it does not inherently have a positive impact on equity, inclusion, and quality in education;
Whilst there is considerable research on technology, there is a palpable lack of rigorous, independent research dedicated to understanding the role and impact of AI in educational settings and on the quality of education;
Policies on the introduction and use of new technologies in education institutions have too often been developed without consulting the teaching profession and without adequate understanding of effective teaching and learning practices;
As technology becomes more prevalent in education, the digital divide is growing ever wider. Inequality in access to technology exacerbates existing inequalities in access to education;
The implementation of new technologies can exacerbate existing inequities beyond the digital divide. Systemic inequities and discriminatory practices in society are reflected in digital spaces. Online violence and harassment based on gender, racial, ethnic, sexual, cultural, and social identity have a harmful impact on the targeted users and may therefore impact their use of and access to technology;
The utilisation of technology and, more specifically, AI, can have profound implications for human rights. Operating on vast amounts of largely unregulated data, the use of AI in education can lead to the violation of student, teacher and ESP’s data privacy or install biases and stereotypes that can impact students’ results and wellbeing and lead to discriminatory outcomes. It can also enable their surveillance;
The commercial imperatives of the technology industry have not only shaped the direction of educational technology development but have also resulted in a significant and still increasing transfer of public funds to private entities;
The increasing use of advanced technology in education risks public education systems becoming dependent on private technology corporations. This would shift education from being a public good to a commercial, for-profit, enterprise and disempower the teaching profession;
Algorithms embedded in technology play an increasingly significant role in shaping our personal and professional experiences. Yet there remains a widespread lack of transparency and understanding regarding their operations and implications for education systems as well as democratic societies. Due to biased input data, many algorithms reinforce structures of discrimination found in society, including racism and sexism;
The digitalisation of knowledge, or adjusting curriculum for digital purposes, can lead to a narrowing and impoverishment of curriculum. Furthermore, the excessive use of technologies and AI can cause technological dependency, leading to a loss of cognitive, social-emotional and motor skills;
The digitalisation of teaching resources can improve teachers’ access to quality teaching and learning materials. However, online teaching resources too often lack quality assurance. They also too often lack language diversity, reinforcing the privileging of dominant languages and cultures, which may enhance neocolonialism;
Technology generally and AI specifically are changing the world of work, underlining the importance of a broad-based quality education that provides students with socio-emotional skills, critical thinking skills, collaboration skills and problem-solving abilities. These competences are difficult to teach and measure using technology and AI;
Some functions within the education system risk being replaced by AI, which may result in positions being cut or job displacement. This is likely to affect ESP to a greater degree at first but will undoubtedly affect teachers and other educators in the future;
The rise of the platform economy, closely connected to advances in AI, reveals a concerning trend of non-unionised, precarious employment conditions. The transformation of the State and public sector in this context poses risks of creating a detrimental gig-economy model in education, a trend already evident in the higher education sector. This new face of privatisation erodes traditional employment standards and poses challenges to union organisation.
This Congress further asserts that:
Education is a human endeavour, and nothing can replace the relationship between a student and an educator.
Technology and AI must complement existing pedagogical methods, and face-to-face interactions must be maintained. The risk of standardisation posed by widespread technology and AI must be balanced by policies that preserve teachers’ pedagogical freedom and creativity in their pedagogical approaches.
Teachers and ESPs must be proactively involved in the development of educational technologies and the assessments of them to ensure these tools are pedagogically sound and meet the practical needs of teachers, ESP and education institutions.
Educators need to be trained and supported to teach socio-emotional skills, critical thinking skills, collaboration skills and problem-solving abilities, as well as to teach students how to understand and use AI appropriately and ethically, given its increasing role in the world of work.
Local teachers and ESP should be involved in the development and dissemination of teaching resources to avoid neo-colonialism.
Teachers and ESP must be trained, supported and trusted to make decisions on the use of technology and AI tools in their work. Teacher professionalism and autonomy are preconditions for the successful integration of technology in pedagogy and practice.
Teachers and ESP must be offered ongoing professional development designed to effectively integrate technology and AI into their instructional and educational support practices. These programmes must be accessible, free, continuous, and evolve along with technological advancements.
Since the spread of disinformation poses a threat to democracy and is amplified by emerging technologies including artificial intelligence, quality education must include a focus on digital, online and media literacy.
The introduction of technology must not undermine the breadth of the curriculum by undervaluing subjects or competences that are more challenging to digitalise.
Fair and balanced intellectual property rights must be defended in the context of technological advances. Educators and researchers need protections against generative AI using their intellectual property without attribution and compensation.
Education professionals, including ethicists and data scientists, as well as students, families and communities, each according to their own expertise, must be involved in the development, piloting, implementation, and evaluation of EdTech and AI tools in education to ensure that the tools are based on solid evidence regarding standards of quality.
Teachers and ESP have the right both to connect and to disconnect. Teachers and ESP should be provided with access to internet connectivity and devices to support teaching and learning. On the other hand, technology can pose a risk to teacher and ESP wellbeing if they are unable to disconnect outside of working hours.
Governments must regulate data mining in education and ensure data confidentiality. Education must not become a data mining market for private companies: teacher and students’ data should be collected following the principle of “as much as necessary, as little as possible”. The purpose for data collection should always be to enhance the equity, inclusion and quality of education. Data must not be tradeable for private profit. Education unions should be involved in policy discussions over ownership and control to ensure data privacy and security in the collection and storage of data of teachers and students;
Governments must ensure the use of transparent algorithms in all systems relating to education;
There is a growing need for transparency and democratic accountability in the deployment and financing of technology in education, ensuring that students, rather than corporate profits, remain at the forefront;
There is also a growing need for inclusive technology and AI developments in education emphasising perspectives from vulnerable and marginalised social groups.
This Congress mandates member organisations to:
Call on their government to ensure equitable access to technology for all students, teachers and ESP in all their diversity. This includes meaningful access for all gender, racial, ethnic, sexual, cultural, and social identities, and actions to address and tackle online violence and harassment against marginalized people;
Advocate for the implementation of enhanced data privacy, data security and data ownership measures for both teachers, ESP and students. Education institutions must address ethical considerations, including consent and the use of student data, in the deployment of AI in education. Education data must be publicly owned and democratically accountable;
Advocate for transparent algorithms in all education related systems used by education stakeholders such as education employers, knowledge institutions, and developers of learning materials;
Insist on education professional’s agency and autonomy as a precondition for equitable, inclusive and quality technology in education, and the representation of education professionals in the development, piloting, implementation, and evaluation of technology and AI tools in education, including their transparency, fairness and accountability.
Advance the competencies of member organisations to engage with technology companies in the determination of content and methodologies that enable professional teaching and learning;
Engage in social dialogue to assume governance and oversight responsibilities around the acquisition, development, and use of technology in public education systems;
Work to establish policies that support the mental health and wellbeing of teachers and ESP, recognizing the unique challenges posed by an increasingly digital work environment;
Advocate for equitable access to professional development in technology and AI for all educators, ensuring no teacher or ESP is left behind in the technological development of education;
Facilitate collaboration among teachers, parents, students, and other educational stakeholders to ensure a holistic, inclusive, and humane approach to the integration of technology and AI in education.
This Congress mandates the Executive Board to:
Establish a network on education technology, providing member organisations a collaborative space to navigate this rapidly evolving domain;
Advocate for responsible use of social media. To this end, EI will carry its advocacy to the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) – a body of global stakeholders convened by the United Nations – calling on the IGF to direct multinational companies in ensuring that their models and algorithms are developed and employed ethically and transparently, with developers being held accountable for real-world harm and impacts. Social media companies have shown us that they have the expertise to design their products to achieve specific goals. We call on them to focus that expertise on the safety of children instead of elaborate strategies that prioritize profit;
Collaborate with other Global Union Federations to call for better conditions for all workers across sectors around issues related to technology and AI;
Advocate for union leadership in the governance and monitoring of educational technologies;
Continue to work for every teacher and ESP’s right to both connect and disconnect, promoting the adoption of policies that defend the right to privacy;
Continue to work with international organisations to ensure that teacher and ESP professional autonomy is not undermined but supported by technology in a human-centred education system where human interactions are at the core.