By Evelyne Para, Soroptimist International Representative to UNESCO
Evelyne Para at UNESCO’s Digital Learning Week in Paris
The influence of artificial intelligence (AI) on education continues to grow worldwide. Virtual tutors are now reaching learners who lack access to personalised support, while AI systems are beginning to operate autonomously and synthetic content is transforming the production and validation of knowledge.
Today, in the era of synthetic knowledge, how can we safely navigate the tensions AI introduces into education, and what new horizons are emerging in the field? These were among the questions addressed by the many speakers and participants at the 2026 Digital Learning Week—held from 8 to 11 September at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris—under the theme “Education in the Age of AI: Facts, Frictions, and Frontiers”.
The event aimed to foster critical reflection and constructive collaboration to advance an ethical, human-centric digital transformation in education, with the goal of “reinventing our future together”. It encouraged collective thinking and action to ensure that humanity, equity, and education’s mission as a public good remain at the heart of future educational challenges. It also brought together a community of key digital education stakeholders — including policymakers, researchers, and practitioners from diverse organisations such as UN agencies, governments, NGOs, and the private sector — to align technology with the needs of education.
I had the opportunity to attend in person several meetings and roundtables held at UNESCO. I greatly appreciated the dynamic and stimulating discussions, the enriching debates, and the presentation of essential resources and tools —particularly the many UNESCO guides for teachers and students — as well as the chance to discover innovative ideas and perspectives shared by world-renowned experts and leaders.
Here is a brief summary, structured around the three main themes of the week’s programme: facts, frictions, and frontiers.
The Facts
An increasing share of the data fuelling AI is now generated by AI itself. Synthetic media and AI-generated content are increasingly built upon foundations that are often fragile and contested — resting on information that is biased or even steered by increasingly influential autonomous systems. The very definition of what constitutes a fact or evidence is undergoing a profound shift, with consequences for education that are far-reaching and as yet largely unresolved.
It is urgent and important for education systems to respond by rethinking and integrating the production of reliable evidence to inform policies, knowledge, and practices, with the aim of ensuring transparency grounded in ethical architectures.
The Frictions
Friction defines our education systems in the age of AI. Technological shifts are catalysing tensions within pedagogy, curricula, assessment, and educational governance. Every day — in classrooms, homes, research labs, and workshops — market interests, machine logic, environmental concerns, and public service missions converge and clash.
What strategies should be developed to prioritise the protection of education’s public service mission and of teaching methods suited to specific age groups or diverse vulnerabilities? How can we build governance frameworks that ensure overall coherence? Several speakers shared valuable insights in an effort to address these complex questions.
The Frontiers
Digital Learning Week—held from 8 to 11 September at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris—under the theme “Education in the Age of AI: Facts, Frictions, and Frontiers
Education is fragmenting into a multitude of intertwined perspectives. Proactive education systems are charting new paths towards AI serving the public interest and digital sovereignty, fortunately placing equity and ethical oversight at the heart of their concerns. In contexts of high digital maturity, an analogue frontier — backed by science — is simultaneously emerging, bringing handwriting, printed texts, and face-to-face interactions back into the classroom. In resource-constrained areas, more user-friendly technologies driven by local communities are appearing as grassroots alternatives. Looming over this landscape are areas of vulnerability, where the precariousness of gig work, job losses due to automation, and widening inequalities define the daily reality for most teachers, students, and workers.
Here, too, there is an urgent need to analyse and understand the interdependent boundaries emerging across different contexts, so as to always prioritise the human element, equity, and education’s mission to serve the public interest.
Several stakeholders have emphasised the importance of considering AI’s role in addressing current inequalities regarding access to knowledge, research, and diverse cultural expressions, and of ensuring that AI does not widen the technological divide — both within and between countries. The promise of “AI for all” must enable everyone to benefit from the ongoing technological revolution and access its fruits, particularly in terms of innovation and knowledge.
These themes resonate directly with Soroptimist International’s own advocacy for equitable access to education, particularly for women and girls, and our commitment to ensuring technology serves — rather than undermines — the public good.
