In a compelling keynote address, Ms Shafika Isaacs, Interim Director of UNESCO IITE and Chief of Section for Technology and AI in Education, challenged global leaders to re-examine the “AI talent ecosystem. Her message was clear: as AI infrastructure expands at breakneck speed, we need renewed and urgent commitment to invest in human capacity and human agency.
The event took place at the prestigious Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain where UNESCO IITE participated in a high-level summit hosted by Huawei titled: Education +AI: Embracing an Intelligent Future. The event served as a vital crossroads for global progress, bringing together representatives from ministries of education, leading academic institutions, and industry pioneers to address the catalytic influence of AI in education.
“As education leaders in the age of ‘agentic’ AI, we are navigating a complex contradictory AI talent ecosystem. A central contradiction is that unprecedented AI infrastructure investments are accompanied by high- and low-level job cuts and disproportionate investment in human skills and capabilities. UNESCO advocates for redoubling our investment in the essential human-centered aspects of our interaction with machine-driven systems. We call for investment in 44 million teachers needed by 2030 to meet the Sustainable Development Goals; for growing capable education system leadership towards meaningful policy action; and to focus attention on pedagogical and curriculum transformation that prioritizes ethical reasoning, critical thinking, creativity and critical human agency” noted Ms. Isaacs.
The commitment to these values is already in motion through UNESCO’s twin AI Competency Frameworks for Teachers and Students and the UNESCO IITE and Huawei’s collaborative project: “Al Capacity Building in Arabic-Speaking Countries and Promoting ICT Education in Central Asia”. This project strengthens national capacities in higher education and TVET to develop ICT skills development strategies in response to structural labor market shifts. The insight reports with recommendations on ICT skills development are published on the UNESCO IITE website. https://iite.unesco.org/publications/