Reflections from UNESCO DLW 2026

What does meaningful AI integration in education actually require?

This question ran through many of the discussions at UNESCO Digital Learning Week 2026, held in Paris from 8 to 11 September. For STTAIRS, participating in the event provided an opportunity not only to present our work, but also to listen, compare approaches and reflect on how the international debate is evolving.

One message emerged particularly strongly: AI in education cannot be approached simply as a question of tools. It affects pedagogy, assessment, professional development, equity, governance and the way we understand learning itself.

The conversation is therefore moving from What can AI do? towards more demanding questions: What should it do? Under what conditions? For whom? What learning does it support or displace? And who retains the capacity to decide?

From products to learning processes

One important implication concerns assessment.

When AI can substantially contribute to producing an essay, presentation or other final output, that product alone may no longer provide sufficient evidence of what a learner understands.

Attention consequently needs to shift towards the learning process: reasoning, oral explanation, justification of decisions, critical judgement and the ability to demonstrate understanding.

This also means recognising that not every reduction in effort represents an educational improvement. Some degree of cognitive challenge remains necessary for learning.

AI literacy is more than knowing how to prompt

A second recurring theme was the need for a more ambitious understanding of AI literacy.

Using an AI application effectively is only part of the picture. Teachers and learners also need to understand its limitations, question its outputs and recognise how data, linguistic and cultural representation, technical design and commercial decisions can influence the answers they receive.

This becomes particularly important when discussing children and young people, inclusion and the growing inequalities not only in access to AI, but also in the quality of its use.

Keeping human agency at the centre

Perhaps the strongest connection with STTAIRS was the emphasis on human agency.

Responsible AI integration requires teachers and learners to retain the capacity to understand, question and make informed decisions about technology rather than simply adapting educational practice to what a particular tool makes possible.

For STTAIRS, the discussions in Paris reinforced the importance of connecting teacher professional development, pedagogy, ethics, accessibility, inclusion and human agency.