Rome (Italy). On 24 January 2025, the International Day of Education is celebrated, established in 2018 by the UN General Assembly to highlight the essential role of education in achieving peace and development, to raise awareness of educative emergencies worldwide and to support inclusive, equitable, and quality education for all citizens around the world.
Promoted by UNESCO – the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization – this year explores the theme AI and Education: Preserving Human Agency in a World of Automation, exploring how AI can be a tool for transforming educational practices, while education leads to an ethical and humane use of these technologies.
This theme reflects the growing interaction between technology and learning, inviting reflection on how education can provide individuals and communities with the tools to understand and shape the technological future while maintaining human autonomy at its core.
The event aims to explore the ethical and effective integration of artificial intelligence into the educative environment. The main objectives include:
- Educative Trasformation with IA: Identify how artificial intelligence can improve teaching, school management, and assessment methods.
- Critical literacy in IA: Develop skills to enable educators and students to understand and influence the development of AI technologies, following the guidelines of UNESCO.
- Balance between technology and humanity: Ensure that automation supports fundamental aspects of education, such as interpersonal connections and emotional development.
AI in Education: innovations and challenges
The use of artificial intelligence tools, such as machine learning algorithms and generative systems, has led to significant changes in education. Students use AI to do school homework, while teachers use it to evaluate assignments, plan lessons, and predict school outcomes. In higher education, automation is applied in processes ranging from admission to certification.
Despite the advantages, ethical and social challenges emerge. Delegating educative decisions to machines raises questions about how to maintain human intentionality in an increasingly automated environment. To address these issues, it is essential to ensure that AI-driven decisions respect ethical values, prioritising transparency and accountability.
AI Competency-Oriented Education must prepare the new generations to face advanced technologies, which require more than just technical knowledge. It is essential to promote a critical analysis of the social, cultural, and ethical impacts of AI tools.
The UNESCO Competency Framework provides guidance for integrating AI issues into educative systems. This approach aims to ensure that teachers and students recognise the limits of technology and use it in an ethical and responsible way, without compromising human autonomy.
Preserving autonomy in an automated world
In a context of increasing automation, the role of education is to ensure that people retain control over the technologies that shape their lives. Aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda, this vision highlights the importance of directing AI use towards building a more inclusive and just society.
In November 2024, various Daughters of Mary Help of Christians participated in an online seminar organized by the UISG’s Commission for Education, which addressed the theme: “Artificial Intelligence, an educative challenge”. Subsequently, the Youth Ministry Sector of the FMA Institute prepared a “PM in Communion” issue, #18, which summarizes the UISG seminar and encourages all educating communities to deepen their knowledge on this topic.
International Education Day 2025 reaffirms the transformative role of education in building a more sustainable, ethical, and human-centred future. In a rapidly changing technological world, education remains essential to form critical, creative, and socially responsible citizens.
“May faithful Christians, believers of various religions, and men and women of good will work together harmoniously to seize the opportunities and face the challenges posed by the digital revolution, and deliver a more united, just, and peaceful world to future generations”. (Pope Francis)
