Background: The EU Commission opened a Call for evidence (2026) for the new Education Package and asked citizens and all other relevant stakeholders for feedback. The initiative aims at “improving the performance of school education in the age of AI.” Read here DARE network’s position:
Stocktaking and learning from previous activities
DARE (Democracy and Human Rights Education in Europe) would like to propose a careful and honest stocktaking measure as a first priority in order to learn from the challenges and mistakes of the past, before decisions about new investments.
E. g. we remember the intense efforts made a few years ago to push blockchain into the education market—an endeavor that, fortunately for our students, was not successful. We also do not understand why the long-planned educational platforms in the member states are not yet available in a useful form. Parallel coding and prototyping for various educational sectors and without cross-border-experience exchange. Remember personal learning accounts, or digital recognition of non-formal learning experiences..
We would also like to highlight the environmental impact of ‘impulse purchases’ A large number of tablets were, for instance, purchased in Europe for educational purposes and made available to teachers and students. Due to a lack of adequate administrative capabilities, software issues, or simply because teachers in particular—but also schools—did not need them on-site, Samsung and Apple benefited disproportionately, rather than educational success.
Strengthening decentralized value chains and digital learning ecosystems
Strengthening oligopols and centralisation. Furthermore, in the wake of intensive investments in digital education, the focus was in the last years directed precisely toward the very issue that poses a problem for the EU today. Instead of strengthening decentralized value chains and digital learning ecosystems with strong regional and local IT partners, and instead of investing in proven and effective (often strongly European-oriented) FOSS solutions such as Nextcloud, LibreOffice, BigBlueButton or well working Jitsi instances, open-source operating systems, and open source desktops, – existing solutions which were already in the early stages of development were dismantled. The solution was using MS Teams licenses. We would like to emphasize: “Using” is not “investing”.
Competences of learners in the focus
Some of these factors had a negative impact on students’ skill development. For example, PISA pointed out early on that there was a negative correlation between digital learning content and reading proficiency. Rather than diminishing, this problem has intensified with the widespread use of AI in learning contexts. In this regard, we must consider both the planned use of EdTech by teaching staff or schools and the informal use of AI by students and teachers. We shouldn’t fall into anti-technology attitudes, but in the future, EdTech should better demonstrate before it is rolled out that teachers, students, and parents benefit from it. Control and co-governance (especially by teachers, learners and parents) of the application, the data and the analysis deriving from the technology used in education must be ensured.
More Digital Citizenship Education
The research in the DARE network confirmed that youth has the strong need to understand how platformisation, algorithmisation, datafication and data-driven surveillance have impact on their concrete life. See: Policy: Digital Youth Work and Democratic Participation in Digital Spaces. In conclusion, the same principles that count for any other issue related to digitalisation and youth should be applied to education too. a) teaching these issues and to all learners and not only to those that are entering the secondary and higher education is key if youth should learn to master technology instead of feeling exposed to it. b) in consequence, digital competence and digital education need to go beyond the scope of the new AI framework: include reasoning about personal, social and structural impact of technologies and their concrete applications. In other words: include the, among others, by the CoE promoted Digital Citizenship Education in teacher training and in any educational activities related to the digital.