@UNICEF Education, @GlobalEdTechHub and @UNICEF Innocenti have launched an important new report: “Shaping the future of digital education, A global conversation on how to move beyond digital as usual” 

We have contributed to this report, and support UNICEF and EdTech Hub’s call to action to make learning equity the defining driver of investment in digital and AI in education. Without strong and proactive governance, business as usual in digital education does not deliver safe, quality learning opportunities for every child.

Our contribution reports the key findings of a global review of repositories created to categorize EdTech tools along different design, evaluation, certification, analytical or promotional purposes. It provides a typology of these mechanisms and an analysis of who devises and funds them, and to what ends. We argue the quality of digital and AI-enabled tools for learning and teaching depends not only on how they are designed, but also on the criteria education systems use to identify, evaluate and choose them.

It is clear from the evidence reviews, expert think pieces and country case studies in this account of the current state of digital and AI technologies in education is: what counts as ‘what works’ in digital education must always be highly contextualized – on pedagogy, implementation conditions, safety, procurement and local capacity.