What you need to know about AI and the right to education

What you need to know about AI and the right to education

https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/what-you-need-know-about-ai-and-right-education

During Digital Learning Week 2025, UNESCO released a new report “AI and education: protecting the rights of learners.”

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25 September 2025

Summary

·       Why is the right to education relevant in the conversation about AI?

·       What questions does this report ask?

·       What are some of the key issues?

·       Are there links to other rights?

·       What are the reports main findings?

·       What is UNESCO’s role in follow up?

At a time when AI is rapidly transforming societies, the report provides an urgent call to action. It analyses how AI and digital technologies impact access, equity, quality and governance in education, and examines their implications for a wide spectrum of human rights, from privacy and cultural rights to the right to information and protection from violence. 

Why is the right to education relevant in the conversation about AI?

The right to education is a fundamental human right. Education must be available, accessible, acceptable, and adapted to the needs of students. In today’s digital age, ensuring education meets these criteria is more important than ever. UNESCO’s new report takes a close look at both the possibilities and challenges the digitalization brings to the education sector, with a special focus on accessibility and quality. 

What questions does this report ask?

The report, taking a human-rights based approach, seeks to answer three key research questions:

• What norms and standards, as currently laid out in the international human rights framework, apply to digitalization processes in education?
• What are the opportunities and challenges associated with digitalization in education, including the integration of AI?
• What considerations for national and international guidance can be elaborated to reinforce regulation in light of the evolving right to education framework?

To answer these questions, the report uses the 5C framework, which provides a common reference point for stakeholders to align their approaches to digital transformation in education: coordination and leadership; content and solutions; capacity and culture; connectivity and infrastructure; cost and sustainability.

What are some of the key issues?

One major challenge is that high-speed internet access and access to technology are becoming essential for learning. Yet, reliable internet connectivity remains a foundational barrier to ensuring the right to education. 

While the percentage of internet users has grown significantly, internet access in schools remains uneven: only 40% of primary schools, 50% of lower secondary schools, and 65% of upper secondary schools globally have access to the internet.  

These figures mask important regional variations: In the Americas, Europe, and the Commonwealth of Independent States, school connectivity ranges from 80-90%, while it drops to 64% in Asia-Pacific States and 40% in Africa. Rural areas in least developed countries are particularly affected, with internet access as low as 14%. 

Additionally, gender, disability, language, and age remain compounding factors that limit access and deepen the digital divide. The report explores these intersections and provides policy guidance to address them. 

As AI becomes an increasingly integrated into education systems, the consequence of digital exclusion grows more severe.

Without equitable, affordable, and sustainable access to internet and digital devices, many learners are at risk of being left further behind and not being able to exercise their right to education.  Bridging this gap is not only critical to realizing the right to education but also for ensuring that emerging technologies benefit all learners – not just those in already connected regions. 

Are there links to other rights?

Education is a cornerstone for realizing human rights and is deeply intertwined with many other human rights. As AI becomes more embedded in education systems, it raises pressing questions about other rights such as rights to privacy, work, culture, autonomy, and the right to be heard. How will student data, for example, be collected and used, including by private companies? How can we ensure that the best interests of the child are upheld in digital learning environments? And how can digital tools be made truly inclusive, especially for speakers of underrepresented languages online? 

The report explores these complex intersections and offers critical insights for policymakers and educators. By framing education as part of a broader human rights ecosystem, it calls for a comprehensive, rights-based approach to digital transformation in education. 

What are the reports main findings?

The report identifies several legal concerns arising from the digitalization of education and the accelerated use of AI. These include access, bias and ethics, protection, cultural and linguistic diversity, vulnerability, and accountability. While these concerns vary across regions, they represent core challenges that must be addressed globally to ensure that digitalisation enhances rather than undermines the right to education. 

The report calls for countries to integrate human rights protections into digital learning environments. Focusing on coordination, content, capacity, connectivity, and cost, it provides guidelines for a digital transformation of education that upholds the right to education. Necessary safeguards must be put in place to ensure that no one is left behind in the digital age. 

What is UNESCO’s role in follow up?

UNESCO works with governments to support inclusive and human-centred digital learning ecosystems.

Since 2024, UNESCO has supported 58 countries in designing or improving digital and AI competency frameworks, curricula, and quality-assured training for educators and policymakers. The UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence and AI competency frameworks for teachers and students have created a roadmap for an ethical, equitable, and human-centred and human-rights based future for AI in education.

The new publication is part of UNESCO’s ongoing efforts to support countries in integrating AI into education system. UNESCO has previously published the first-ever Guidance for generative AI in education and research to help navigate AI critically, creatively, and ethically. It has also prepared AI competency frameworks for teachers and students to help the integration of AI learning objectives into curricula and teaching practices. 

As education continues to evolve and new challenges emerge, the Initiative on the Evolving Right to Education is exploring how international human rights framework can be reinforced and further developed to respond to the reality of diverse and ever-changing societies.