As countries strive to provide future-ready education, they need to establish firm digital foundations for learning at scale.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has joined the Gateways to Public Digital Learning Initiative as a core partner, strengthening a global effort by United Nations agencies to help governments build high-quality public digital learning platforms.

United Nations (UN) Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed noted that Gateways, by “leading governments to embed public platforms in education systems,” drives progress on SDG 4: Quality Education – the UN’s fourth Sustainable Development Goal for 2030.

ITU brings added expertise in technical standards, interoperability and digital public infrastructure, complementing the work of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on content, pedagogy and platform governance.

UNESCO and UNICEF first set up Gateways to Public Digital Learning in 2022 to help countries build and strengthen national and subnational public digital learning platforms. More than 35 countries from different regions now participate in the initiative, sharing practical experience on designing, funding, governing and sustaining these platforms.

“This partnership brings together three complementary mandates: UNESCO’s educational vision and normative leadership, UNICEF’s focus on equity and the rights of every child, and ITU’s expertise in digital infrastructure, interoperability and secure systems,” said Alex Wong, Senior Advisor on Strategic Engagement and Initiatives at ITU.

“Individually, each of these perspectives is essential, but it is their combination that makes it possible to address digital education as a system-level challenge,” Wong added. “This is the UN delivering as one, on a problem no single agency can solve alone.”

Putting principles into practice

The Gateways partnership builds on ITU’s existing collaboration with UNESCO and UNICEF through the Charter for Public Digital Learning Platforms, a normative reference released earlier this year that sets out principles for the design, governance and sustainability of public digital learning platforms.

ITU’s input – particularly on open standards – helps keep platforms interoperable, secure, and ready for integration as trusted components of national digital infrastructure.

The partners made the new announcement during TES+4, a four-year stocktake on progress following the UN Transforming Education Summit (TES) in 2022.

A high-level panel session at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France, explored inclusive digital transformation, with a focus on harnessing innovation, particularly in artificial intelligence (AI), to expand equitable, accessible and future-ready teaching and learning for everyone globally.

Representatives of UNESCO, UNICEF and ITU spoke alongside ministers and deputy ministers of education about how digital transformation and AI are shaping the future of learning.

As TES follow-up reaches its halfway point to 2030, the three agencies are intensifying their collaboration to help countries build safe, inclusive and sustainable public digital learning platforms so that all learners, worldwide, can benefit from high-quality public digital education.

Based on a press release prepared by Gateways partners