EU Member States discussed, on Thursday 15 September, the Czech Presidency’s draft conclusions on supporting well-being in digital education at a meeting of the EU Council’s Committee on Education.
In a context where “the way people learn, work, use information and communicate” has “radically” changed, the Czech Presidency of the EU Council calls on Member States to focus on strengthening the well-being of students and educators when designing national policies and strategies in this area.
Furthermore, teaching and learning processes that take this dimension into account should also be promoted, taking into consideration the impact of technology and digital technology on pupils and students. In addition, there should be more cooperation between digital education, professionals and health services.
While work is currently underway on a number of digital-related pieces of legislation - such as the Artificial Intelligence Act (see EUROPE 13014/30) or the Data Act (see EUROPE 13021/18) - the draft conclusions state that the integration of ‘advanced’ technologies should be promoted in the field of education in order to better support vulnerable and disadvantaged pupils and students.
Awareness-raising work should also be carried out to balance ‘screen’ and ‘non-screen’ time.
On the educators’ side, the Czech Presidency of the EU Council proposes to explore “ways to help promote critical thinking among pupils and students, media and digital literacy and working with data and information”, with a particular focus on disinformation.
To achieve this, the Czech Presidency of the EU Council states that it would be necessary to consider using the possibilities offered by existing EU instruments, such as the European Social Fund plus or the Erasmus+ programme, to develop future digital education policies.
See the draft conclusions: https://aeur.eu/f/35g (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)