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All children, youth, and adults deserve opportunities to learn through high-quality public digital gateways to education. At the Transforming Education Summit, UNESCO and UNICEF launched Gateways to Public Digital Learning, a global, multi-partner initiative to support countries in securing equitable access to digital learning resources. The new Initiative will map, describe and analyze existing public platforms and content; help countries create and strengthen national platforms; identify and share best practices; and establish international norms and standards to guide the development of platforms in ways that advance national and international goals for education.

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. They 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.

Objective and proposed actions

The main objective of the Gateways Initiative is to establish and technically support an international movement 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.

In most contexts, content should be accessible via a national platform that is overseen, sustained, and improved with public resources. These platforms should be free for all users and complement and support teaching and learning that happens in school. They should also open avenues for self-driven education and lifelong learning.

The Gateways Initiative will further seek to help countries recognize and act on national, regional, and global possibilities to advance education through digital cooperation and solidarity. The internet allows unprecedented ¨C although currently underutilized ¨C possibilities for sharing, cooperation, and the pooling of resources that can benefit learners, teachers, and families within countries and also across them. This Initiative aims to maximize these collaborative actions.

Components

The Gateways to Public Digital Learning Initiative will advance progress across three components:

1. A Global Gateway;
2. Evidence Generation and Best Practices;
3. Norms and Standards

Partners

The Initiative will mobilize partners to establish international expert groups that will inform and guide the work under each of the three components