Prime Highlights
- UNICEF and Helsinki Education Hub signed a formal partnership to develop safe and research-based digital learning solutions for children globally.
- The collaboration targets major global education gaps, including 273 million children out of school and low literacy levels affecting 7 in 10 children in low- and middle-income countries.
Key Facts
- The partnership was formalised through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in Helsinki, focusing on AI, EdTech innovation, and inclusive education systems.
- It will work across four areas: safe EdTech development, capacity building, ecosystem collaboration, and global education innovation thought leadership.
Background
UNICEF and the Helsinki Education Hub have entered into a formal partnership to promote safe, research-based digital learning solutions aimed at improving access to quality education for children worldwide.
The scale of the problem underpins the urgency. Right now, 273 million children are out of school. In low and middle-income countries, seven out of ten ten-year-olds cannot read or understand a simple text.
Both organisations believe artificial intelligence and education technology can change those numbers, but only if the tools built are safe, evidence-based, and designed with teachers and marginalised learners in mind.
The two organisations signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Helsinki, formalising a relationship that had already been producing results. The agreement sets a shared direction across four areas advancing quality and inclusive education technology, building capacity through knowledge exchange, bringing ecosystem partners together for dialogue, and strengthening thought leadership in the fast-moving digital learning space.
Frank van Cappelle, UNICEF’s Global Lead on Digital Education, said the partnership creates a space to push global conversations forward. “This vital partnership with the Helsinki Education Hub provides us with a convening space to advance our global dialogue on the impact, challenges and opportunities of AI and EdTech in education,” he said.
The Helsinki Education Hub brings together technology startups, schools, university researchers, teachers, and students to build and test digital learning tools grounded in current research.
Auli Toom, Professor and Vice Dean for Research and Innovations at the University of Helsinki, said the collaboration works because it pulls expertise from different directions. “Through our partnership with UNICEF, we are able to strengthen collaboration across the education innovation ecosystem and combine cutting-edge research with UNICEF’s deep expertise in quality education,” she said.
Finland’s history of investment in education and its continued support for UNICEF’s digital education work helped lay the groundwork for the agreement now taking the partnership to a global scale.
