2025 International Day of Education: AI and Education

The International Day of Education is celebrated each year on the 24th of January to promote education as a human right and public responsibility that develops upstanding citizens and societies. Previous themes for this day of observance include "Turning the Tide, Transforming Education" (2022) and "Learning for Lasting Peace" (2024). This year, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) agency deemed the 2025 theme "AI and Education: Human Agency in an Automated World."

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a global phenomenon that has impacted the world of education. The UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay stated that AI "must complement the human and social dimensions of learning, rather than replace them." In other words, AI must be a tool that serves teachers and students by prioritising human autonomy for processing and applying information while safeguarding an ethical relationship between humans and machines. The concern with AI in the field of education is that while it becomes increasingly present in the lives of students and teachers, there is a lack of clear guidelines or frameworks that guide its ethical use.

In 2024, Pope Francis stated that AI needs to remain a "tool in human hands" that helps provide for the needs of humanity while being at the service of the disadvantaged, which includes 250 million children and youth who do not go to school globally, and 763 million adults who cannot read or write.[1] Taking into consideration that AI is now easily accessible for children in wealthy countries, this widens the disparity gap for children in developing countries and rural communities who have limited daily access to the digital world.

In Peru, part of the Columban Fathers' mission includes two schools, the Manuel Duato Special Needs School, which educates over 200 children with severe disabilities and the St Bernadette Schools that caters to children from vulnerable backgrounds with their educational, play, and healing journeys.

 If, in the words of Pope Francis, AI is to be at the service of the disadvantaged, how can access and use of artificial intelligence benefit students from schools similar to these Columban-run schools?

The potential benefits of AI include (i) personalised learning platforms where the strengths and weaknesses of students with special needs are analysed to generate customized lessons; (ii) simulating social scenarios to help children on the Autism Spectrum practice communication and social interaction cues; and (iii) identify behavioural patterns that help educators create supportive strategies for their students.

AI's remarkable ability to process information for students and teachers alike provides many opportunities to support their learning development, however, there remain concerns that algorithms can discriminate based on race, gender, and other factors pertaining to student identity. This issue is particularly damaging for students belonging to marginalised groups since AI has the potential to perpetuate damaging stereotypes that can compromise its results.

AI's digital and automated universe has revolutionised education by providing fast and immediate results, shifting the systems of teaching and learning into an accelerated course of infinite possibilities that has already begun to redefine, reshape, and reconceptualise the meaning of education.

For schools like St Bernadette and Manuel Duato, the impact of AI on their curriculum and learning strategies remains to be seen, but the Columban Fathers aim to safeguard the dignity of the children and teachers by ensuring that artificial intelligence will complement rather than replace the human process of learning, understanding, and application in their schools.

Adi Mariana Waqa is the Partnership Coordinator at the Columban Mission Centre in Essendon. 

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