Charte éducation numérique UNESCO - en
Seven
p rinciples to steer
the
development
of public digital learning platforms
UNESCO - UNICEF -
ITU
Charter for
Public Digital
Learning Platform s 1
Schools of the digital world
Public digital learning platforms are the public schools of the digital world.
Like physical schools
–
with their quality - controlled learning resources, prioritization of
safety and well - being, and designs and operations to facilitate equitable education
–
public digital learning platforms are spaces that bring together content, tech nology,
people, and learning activities. They are virtual destinations for public education,
spaces that help learners learn and teachers teach. They prioritize a common
curriculum and reflect the evolving values and goals that societies place on education .
Similarly to public schools, public digital learning platforms serve the public and are
accountable to it.
Too often public education stops where the digital begins
In far too many contexts, public education tends to
stop
where the digital begins.
Hundreds of millions of
learners , teachers,
and families live in countries
or
communities that are not served
by
any public digital learning
platforms .
Other
learners
and families
are confronted with
government - provisioned
platforms that are poorly
maintained, unreliable, and difficult to navigate and use.
Many of the
most widely used platforms for education
are
commercial
offerings
which
exist outside the reach of public education authorities.
These platforms
tend to
reflect
priorities that sit uneasily with the public aims of public education. They
are
engineered
to
maximize subscriptions, data collection, and engagement that generates profit for
private shareholders.
A lot of the higher - quality platforms require costly fees to use, and
this limits their uptake and widens opportunity gaps. Private digital l earning platforms
that are fre e typically
extract data about
teachers and learners. This data is then
deployed
or sold to third parties
to manipulate
a user’s
behavior
through advertising and
other techniques that have nothing to do with teaching and learning
–
and can be
antithetical to these pursuits.
Various other
commercial
platforms used for education
are
not actually designed for
educational use
but rather to enhance workplace
productivity, facilitate general communication, or grip and hold users’ att ention with
content that demands little intellectual or imaginative effort.
Put simply, commercial platforms insufficiently uphold and advance the humanistic,
universal, and publicly agreed missions of public education in digital realms. 2
Extending public education to digital and online realms
This Charter asserts that governments should work to extend public education to digital
and online
environment s ,
as well as to schools, libraries ,
and
other physical spaces
dedicated to education. Digital education and traditional in - person education should be
complementary and interwoven
–
and governments need to be vigilant about both.
Why public digital learning platforms ?
Systems of public education help direct the full development of human beings; promote
understanding and tolerance;
expand
opportunity; catalyze economic growth; and
facilitate the pursuit of truth, justice and social solidarity. Digital platforms for public
education need to advance these same objectives. They are digital commons that help
fulfil l ,
expand , and strengthen
the human right to education.
While some countries build and sustain robust public digital learning platforms, many
more do not.
This
leaves
a vacuum that is
commonly
filled by
non - governmental
actors.
A round the world, for - profit technology corporations have
emerged
the de facto hosts,
architects and operators of digital education, rather
than
ministries of education ,
school leaders and teachers .
I n
countless
national and subnational contexts
alike,
public authorities have largely
cede d
digital education to
private sector companies .
A diversity of platforms
–
whether public or private
–
should be welcomed, but
education is too important to be left to the vicissitudes of the market alone. P ublic
digital learning platforms
have become
essential components of holistic systems of
education . They
guarantee that education will be supported in virtual spaces
and
offer
resources and functionalities
that help
public schools
fulfill thei r
missions . These
platforms
also
benefit a wider spectrum of education providers, from
universities,
libraries
and museums to private, religious, home, and vocational schools .
A dditionally ,
while
public digital learning platforms
should never ‘stand in’ for schools, they
occasionally
offer ‘only option’ link s
to educational opportunities
for learners who
cannot access schooling whether because of poverty,
displacement, conflict, disease,
discrimination, natural disasters
or other reasons .
Public needs and public aims need to steer the development and operation of public
digital learning platforms. Like
public
schools, they should be owned by, controlled by ,
and shared by the public and in service of the public.
This does not discount important 3
roles for the private sector through public - private partnerships and other arrangements,
but there need to be strong mechanisms to assure accountability to the public.
Fortunately, a growing number of governments are recognizing that in a digital and AI
age ,
safe and high - quality public education must cross into digital realms. Young people
commonly spend an average of seven
or more
hours a day immersed in digital screens.
There needs to be a safe harbor for public education on these screens
–
a place where
learners, teachers, parents, and wider communities can go to learn and grow.
Ultimately, the rationale for public digital learning platforms is as simple as it is
compelling: public education must be supported in digital as well as in physical spaces.
Public digital learning platforms have become non - optional complements to physica l
schools.
They carry a vast
and mostly
unrealized potential to help put learners on more
equal footing and better maximize educational opportunities for all.
Aims of the Charter
The UNESCO - UNICEF - ITU
Charter seeks to help guide the creation and development of
public digital learning platforms that support, extend,
and
enrich school - based
education.
The Charter proposes
seven
broad principles that all public digital learning platforms
should strive to reflect and respect.
The
Charter
places a
primary focus on the role of digital learning platforms as
complement s to
K - 12 schooling
and a secondary focus on platforms that open non -
formal learning opportunities or complement
tertiary ,
vocational
or professional
education.
By necessity, the principles are signposts, rather than detailed ‘how to’ guides. Given
the diversity of educational contexts in the world, it will be up to countries
–
and states,
provinces, municipalities and communities within countries
–
to determine w hat
actions and processes are needed to actualize the principles.
Without question, technological advancements in AI, virtual and augmented reality,
quantum computing, neurotech
and other areas will invariably alter ideas of what
public digital learning platforms are, how they work and what they might become. The
principles shared here are intended to provide orientation and direction, even as new 4
technologies open novel possibilities and present novel challenges for educational
platforms.
While the technologies that comprise digital learning platforms will continue to evolve,
the need for well - recognized and trusted digital hubs for public education will remain.
Education systems require a front door for public education in online and digit al
environments
–
spaces that welcome all learners, teachers and families and help them
access quality - assured, relevant, curriculum - aligned, and age -
and culturally -
appropriate learning content and experiences. Just as schools evolve to accommodate
techn ological and social changes, so too will public digital learning platforms.
Seven
principles
This Charter puts forward
seven
principles to help public sector decision - makers make
informed choices about the design, development, provision and enhancement of public
digital learning platforms .
The principles
are
grounded
in
beliefs
that
public
digital
learning
platforms
should:
•
uphold and expand
the
right
to
education,
•
be
governed
as
digital
public goods ,
and
•
strengthen
educational
inclusion,
equ ity and
resilience .
Each principle is
elaborated with sub - points that provide additional guidance to
authorities and teams responsible for the development and oversight of public digital
learning platforms.
Considered holistically, the principles
help define and
establish a common language to
support discussions and policies about digital learning platforms that support public
education. 5
Principle #1: PUBLIC
1.1 Public good:
Public digital learning platforms (PDLPs) embody and reinforce the
principle that education is a public good and a human right, apart from a market - driven
commodity. They serve the collective as well as individual aims of education.
1.2 Public governance:
PDLPs are controlled or closely overseen by public authorities
who are accountable to the public. Governance models treat PDLP s
as public
infrastructure, including, and perhaps especially, in instances when commercial actors
are involved in their development or provision.
1.3 Public
financing:
With rare exception, PDLPs
are
largely or
fully
financed with
consistent and sustainable streams of public revenue. Platforms funded and controlled
by the public will serve the public aims of public education.
While public financing
is
the
foundation of PDLPs,
c omplementary and carefully regulated partnerships with
private
and development partners can enhance
innovation and sustainability under firm public
oversight .
1.4
Data sovereignty and stewardship
D ata generated through
PDLPs
remains under
national jurisdiction and public control.
Information about learners and teachers is
sensitive. It must be
stored, processed, and governed according to national laws and
treated according to norms and values attached to
public education , rather than digital
commerce . When third parties are involved, clear agreements uphold public ownership,
access, and long - term stewardship of data resources.
1. 5
Talented teams of civil servants:
Governments make long - term investments in the
people and teams who build, maintain, and improve PDLPs. This means recruiting,
training, and retaining skilled technical and pedagogical professionals within public
institutions. A platform is only as strong a s the human teams behind it .
Talent
pipelines
must be planned and supported.
Principle #2:
INCLUSIVE
2.1 Widens opportunities for all
A moral imperative of public education is to leave no
one behind. PDLPs
aspire
to
benefit
all
end users, learners and teachers most centrally,
but also, ideally, parents and education authorities.
Asking how platforms will work for
teachers in remote areas, for learners with disabilities, and for children outside of
formal education
help s
direct and prioritize design and development decisions.
2.2
Multilingual support
Learners should have the ability to learn in their own
language. Research has underscored the importance of mother tongue instruction in 6
the early years of education. PDLPs strive to support languages relevant in the national
and sub national contexts where they are used.
Historically, t his process
has been
prohibitively expensive, but
automated
translation tools, while imperfect, have eased
the financial burden considerably and made it more realistic to better support a
multiplicity of languages.
2.3
Accessible
for
learners
with disabilities
A pproximately one in six learners has a
disability.
PDLPs
adhere to internationally recognized accessibility standards , such as
the
Web Content Accessibility G uidelines published by the World Wide Web
Consortium . Compliance with these guidelines or similar accessibility frameworks will
help
ensure that education content is perceivable, operable, understandable and
robust for all users.
2. 4
Culturally aware
PDLPs should reflect and respect the cultural identities of the
learners, teachers and families they serve. There is no shortage of digital learning
content that assumes users are embedded in northern and anglophone cultures and
contexts. PDLPs can break
this default mode by curating content that is more locally
relevant and helps users learn
about and contribute
to
local
knowledge and belief
systems, traditions, histories, art, literature, and languages. Digital technologies and
digit al learning applications are sometimes understood as tools that enable cultural
homogenization or even cultural colonialization, but these impacts are far from
inevitable.
PDLPs can appropriate and deploy t ech n ology
to buttress
cultural and
knowledge diversity.
2. 5
Works with the technology people have
In a perfect world, all users of a PDLP will
have cutting - edge hardware, high bandwidth connectivity, and no restraints on data
consumption. This is almost never the reality. PDLPs should, to the extent possible, run
smoothly on low - cost hardware and acco mmodate intermittent and low bandwidth
connectivity. They should also allow users options to download resources so that they
can be accessed even if users are not connected to the internet. Some of the most
impactful PDLPs are custom - designed to function s moothly on a low - cost smartphone
rather than larger - screen and higher - performance tablets, laptops or desktop
computers.
2.6 Works with the digital skills people have:
Well - designed PDLPs help people with
limited digital skills find and benefit from educational content. Platforms should not
expect teachers and learners to develop sophisticated digital competencies before
trying to benefit from them. When PDLPs succeed i n establishing entry points for
people with nascent digital skills, it tends to propel a virtuous cycle: learning is
accelerated and users get opportunities to become more comfortable accessing and
navigating digital spaces for education. 7
Pr inciple
- 3: PEDAGOGICAL
3.1 Teacher led
PDLPs give teachers
flexibility and
expanded
options to facilitate
student
learning in diverse contexts.
T he content, presentation, design and
functionalities of platforms
should give teachers greater control over education .
PDLPs
that try to
dictate the
actions and choices of
teachers
wrongly
strip the professionals
closest to students of the agency and autonomy they need to do their job s .
Effective
platforms empower teachers and give them a powerful toolbox to connect with
students and improve learning outcomes.
3 . 2
Balances guidance and independent exploration
PDLPs both guide learners and
let them explore ideas and topics on their own. ‘Ask me anything’ and ‘go anywhere’ AI
bots are increasingly understood as promising plug - ins or ‘machine tutors’ for PDLPs.
But these nascent, amoral, and largely user - directed
technologies, while powerful allies
for some educational and knowledge tasks, need to be complemented with more
structured content and tools that help learners make progress in curricular areas. Users
of P DLPs
need
opportunities to lead
their own learning
and be led.
3.3
Pedagogically diverse:
P DLPs
integrate a multiplicity of pedagogical approaches
from constructivist and experiential learning to didactic and behaviorist instruction to
Socratic dialogue and critical reflection.
These approaches and their application in
digital learning platforms should be guided by educational research, findings from
learning sciences and user preferences. PDLPs provide a variety of ways to
engage in
education and are not dominated by one didactic model.
3.4
Learning together and learning alone:
PDLPs facilitate the education of
individuals, groups, and even whole societies and nations, and, in doing so, help them
live together in
peace.
Because many commercial digital learning tools are aimed only
at individual consumers they have, arguably, overemphasized personalization. There is
some evidence to suggest that AI and more fixed algorithmic technologies can select
and tailor educational
content and pathways for individuals in ways that enhance their
learni ng. There is also evidence that group - based learning is more effective
–
and
fosters important social and communication skills that can be difficult to measure. A
PDLP that overemphasizes personalization can, unintentionally, subvert the collective
and pub lic purposes of education. There is value in class and generational cohorts
studying common topics, reading similar books, and discussing ideas in teacher - led
groups. Platforms should strive to advance education as both a collective and individual
endeavor
and maximize opportunities for conversation, cooperation and collaboration
between people
and absent heavy automation or prescriptions from non - human bots . 8
Principle # 4
COMPLEMENTARY
4 .1
Reinforcing
Too many existing educational platforms seek to replace or
circumnavigate teachers and in - person institutions of public education. A
primary
function of PDLPs is to support teachers and strengthen education provided in physical,
face - to - face learning institutions, while expanding the reach of these institutions. The
relationship between schools and PDLPs
is
symbiotic.
4 .2
Part of a larger whole
PDLPs exist to help advance the holistic aims and
aspirations societies set for public education. They should be understood as
integral
components
of wider systems of public education, not standalone ‘products’. They
contribute to and work in
concert
with
wider
education ecosystems
that extend well
beyond digital services.
4 .3
Integrated with foundational digital public infrastructure:
PDLPs are usually a
branch of wider and deeper digital public infrastructure (DPI) that serves public needs
across sectors. Digital learning platforms are integrated with systems such as digital
identity, payment systems and data exchange. Embedding PDLPs
within national DPI
frameworks helps ensure sustainability, support scalability, and improve coherence
with other public digital services.
4 . 4
Embedded
PDLPs should be embedded in and complementary to national
education policy frameworks, including those related to curriculum, teacher
[US add]
development, assessment, scholarship programs, extra - curricular activities,
supplemental instruction and tutoring
[US add]
and resource management systems.
Just as schools are deeply embedded in almost all policy frameworks concerning
education, so too should PDLPs.
4 . 5
Synchronized
Planning, budgeting and reporting cycles connected to PDLPs
should be aligned with cycles related to schools and, when relevant, other essential
public services. This will help guarantee sustainability beyond single budgetary cycle
and responsibility and
accountability beyond a single political cycle. PDLPs need to be
treated as main branches of education systems and wider social programs.
4 . 6
Cohesive and coherent
PDLPs should fill distinct needs and provide resources
and services that are understood by teachers, learners, families, policy - makers, and
others involved in education. If there are multiple PDLPs in a single national or
sub national context, they should have distinct purposes, users, and functions. When
PDLPs offer overlapping services, this creates unnecessary confusion
–
and splinters
government investments in scalable solutions for education. Ideally, PDLPs will reduce 9
fragmentation and redundancies and help an education system operate
in a
cohesive
and coherent manner.
4 . 7
Recognized
Successful PDLPs are known. They should be as familiar to average
people as the names and locations of long - operating local schools. Clustering
diverse
digital education content and services under a single platform improves its recognition.
While there can be good reasons to establish several PDLPs, this practice can also
create
fragmentation and unnecessary
confusion: people forget which platform is for
what purposes and for
whom. Just commercial providers tend to keep digital services
under a single digital roof to improve recognition and increase engagement, so too
should governments. The constant renaming and rebranding of PDLPs, often triggered
by pol itical changes within a country or
a particular
administrative unit, usually
muddies
recognition. Building
and
committing to
one PDLP for public education helps bolster its
visibility, use, and impact.
Principle # 5
- OPEN
5 .1 Connected services and applications:
PDLPs should function as connected and
modular systems. Ideally, different services within a platform will link with and reinforce
others. Systems used for assessment should, for example, bridge to systems that help
teachers locate relevant content and le sson plans. This ensures that teachers can find
resources to assist the review and reinforcement of concepts that students struggled to
grasp as detected by an assessment. Good PDLPs also strive to reduce the need fo r
redundant data entry by incorporating information uploaded to one utility to others.
Currently, many PDLPs are comprised of largely stand - alone applications that rarely
‘talk to’ each other, forcing learners, teachers, and school leaders to enter similar
information across multiple systems, even when these systems are ostensibly housed
within a single platform. Data retrieval, essential to teachers and learners alike, can be
similarly constrained because data resides across walled off systems and applicat ions.
PDLPs should always seek to provide a seamless user experience by, for example,
making content that has been bookmarked easily retrievable no matter where a user is
inside a platform.
5 .2
Built for integration:
Interoperability is facilitated by open technical standards and
systems that enable secure data exchange. PDLPs should be able to connect with other
core education systems, such as education registries or credentialing bodies, through a
Digital Public Infr astructure (DPI) approach. Well planned application programming
interfaces (APIs) facilitate the integration of information housed in diverse repositories
into a PDLP, creating opportunities to expand and improve educational serv ices. APIs
can help integrate everything from notices about community events to content and data