Gateways to Public Digital Learning
The Gateways to Public Digital Learning is a global initiative to ensure that every learner, teacher, and family can easily access, find, and use high-quality and curriculum-aligned digital education content to advance their learning.
The aim is to help countries recognize and act on national, regional, and global possibilities to advance education through digital cooperation and solidarity. The internet allows unprecedented possibilities for sharing, cooperation, and the pooling of resources that can benefit learners, teachers, and families within countries and across them. This initiative seeks to maximize these collaborative actions.
Launched by UNESCO and UNICEF as part of the UN Transforming Education Summit, the initiative will:
- Map, describe and analyze existing public digital learning platforms and content;
- Help countries create and strengthen national learning platforms;
- Identify and share best practices;
- Establish international norms and standards to guide the development of learning platforms in ways that advance national and international goals for education.
Rationale
Reaffirming digital education as a public good
The time has come for countries as well as the international community to treat digital technology and virtual environments as core to the educational enterprise. These demand the same rigor, care, and attention that are paid to the physical infrastructure of learning. Schools and their resources have long been treated as public goods. And rightly so. They benefit everyone and, as such, demand public support, oversight, and governance. The same needs to be done for the digital spaces and infrastructures of learning. All children, youth, and adults deserve opportunities to learn through high-quality public digital gateways to education.
Call to action
During the Transforming Education Summit, countries made two important commitments in the area of digital learning content:
- Establish and iteratively improve national digital learning platforms with high quality, curriculum-aligned education resources, ensuring they are free, open and accessible for all, in line with UNESCO’s Recommendation on Open Educational Resources, and respect the diversity of languages and learning approaches, while also ensuring the privacy and data security of users.
- Ensure these platforms empower teachers, learners, and families, support accessibility and sharing of content, and meet the diverse needs of users including learners with disabilities, girls and women, and people on the move.
Components of the initiative
Create and maintain a global gateway to existing public digital learning platforms sanctioned by ministries of education or other public authorities
Showcase best practices, research and evidence focusing on equity, scalability, safety, and impact
Establish international norms and standards to help countries ensure the quality of public digital learning platforms and inform national targets and benchmarks.
Become a Gateways Country
To take forward commitments to build and strengthen quality public digital learning platforms, countries are invited to join the initiative by becoming a "Gateways Country” and committing to:
Component 1: Sharing information about priority public digital platforms holding curriculum-aligned digital teaching and learning content that is free and open.
Component 2: Joining a cooperation network to exchange experiences, challenges, and expertise on digital learning. This network will participate in global events, regional workshops, and learning missions.
Component 3: Participating in UNESCO’s annual Digital Learning Week event to help UNESCO and UNICEF iteratively refine a framework of international norms and standards for public digital learning platforms.
Monitoring
The Gateways initiative will monitor the development and quality of public digital learning platforms and content. It will also track progress towards relevant national and international targets.
The Initiative will map and analyse publicly sanctioned learning platforms. In addition, it will identify good practices and develop norms and standards which will inform the monitoring and analysis.