A seminar on education planning and governance in the intelligent era concluded with the launch of the Lab of AI Governance and Planning in Education, marking its first milestone with the introduction of Education Policy and Planning AI Agents (EduPX). Organized by Beijing Normal University (BNU) in cooperation with UNESCO, the meeting occurred January 14-19 in Beijing with a focus on education policy, planning, and the transformative effects AI holds for education across all nations.
This seminar gathered 38 participants from 19 different countries, including government officials, educational planners, and international scholars, to explore how AI can shape the future of education. Discussions were centered around such themes as the digital transformation of global education, applications of AI in education governance, and the changing face of education planning in a world driven by AI.
The newly launched Lab of AI Governance and Planning in Education integrates AI technology into education governance and policy planning. It works toward making educational systems more inclusive, efficient, and data-driven. BNU, the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP), the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE), and academic institutions like Tsinghua University collaborate to form this lab.
Some of the lab's goals include addressing digital resource scarcity to developing countries, especially in areas like Africa and Small Island Developing States. This lab aims at ensuring that every global citizen has an opportunity to achieve digital education while providing solutions toward educational equity. Huang Ronghuai of UNESCO's Chair on AI in Education emphasized making resources more accessible by making them much more available.
The first important output of the lab is EduPX, designed to support education decision-making and governance. It deals with challenges in retrieving policy documents, comparing policies, and predicting trends. Through a comprehensive dataset of global education policies, combined with data from economics, technology, and political sectors, EduPX offers multilingual policy support and strategic insights to education planners, research institutions, and international organizations.
