Placing teacher agency at the heart of AI in education
On 21 November, the International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030 (TTF)—through its Digital Education and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Thematic Group co-led by Digital Promise and MESHGuides—convened its members for a dynamic webinar marking the launch of the TTF Position Paper Promoting and Protecting Teacher Agency in the Age of Artificial Intelligence and its newly developed Quick Guide on policy recommendations.
The session formed part of a wider dialogue initiated at Digital Learning Week in September and reinforced by the commitments of the Santiago Consensus endorsed at the World Summit on Teachers in August, where education leaders reaffirmed a simple but powerful truth: teachers are irreplaceable and must remain central to AI-driven transformation in education.
Participants joined from across regions, bringing a diversity of lived experiences, professional backgrounds, and policy perspectives. The discussion quickly revealed both the urgency and the complexity of navigating AI in teaching and learning.
The Urgency and Complexity of AI in Education
Key concerns echoed throughout the conversation included:
- How can ethical values be meaningfully embedded into AI use and teacher education programmes?
- How do we prevent AI from weakening critical thinking, creativity, and cognitive development?
- How can teachers leverage AI to expand teacher autonomy and professional judgment, and what are the risks when misused?
- How can systems reconcile the benefits of AI with the risks of digital distraction, surveillance, and inequality?
Yet, alongside these concerns,, participants reaffirmed a shared understanding: AI is not here to replace teachers, but to augment human intelligence. As one participant noted, “AI and human intelligence are siblings, one supports the other. What matters is having strong policies to regulate AI.” (Phuti Ragophala, Varkey Teacher Ambassador, MIE Fellow and Teaching Associate at University of Johannesburg).
This balance between opportunity and risk sits at the very core of the Teacher Task Force new Position Paper, which highlights both the transformative potential of AI and the dangers of de-professionalisation, cognitive offloading, data misuse, and increased inequities, if poorly governed.
Launching the Position Paper Quick Guide
To ensure these messages travel beyond academic and policy circles, the TTF launched a concise, accessible four-page quick guide designed to support practical implementation by policymakers, school leaders, educators, and partners. This tool distils the key messages of the paper into a clear snapshot, highlighting:
- The irreplaceable role of teachers.
- The importance of AI as a complement, and not a substitute, for pedagogical expertise.
- The need for ethical, inclusive, and teacher-centred AI governance.
- Concrete recommendations for implementation from a policymaker perspective.
As emphasised during the webinar, the full paper and the quick guide are intended to complement each other, supporting advocacy, policy dialogue, and implementation across different contexts.
Putting Vision into Practice
Contributions from TTF members and partners illustrated how this vision is already taking shape in practice. Initiatives such as the European Training Foundation’s Learning Club on AI, the work of UNESCO’s Regional Center for Quality and Excellence in Education (RCQE) on empowering teachers in low-tech environments, and UNESCO’s AI Competency Frameworks for Teachers and Students showcased approaches that prioritise teacher agency, equity, and contextual relevance.
Beyond high-level policy reflections, the discussion surfaced practical and often deeply human concerns from the teaching field:
- How can teachers be supported to use AI as an empowering tool rather than seeing it as a threat?
- How can we protect cognitive development and meaningful learning in children in the age of AI?
- How can we ensure that AI does not erode creativity, motivation, responsibility, or inclusion among learners?
Others raised critical points around cognitive decline, the standardisation of learning, and the risk of treating AI as a shortcut rather than a pedagogical ally.
The discussion ultimately reinforced a central message: if AI is to transform education, systems themselves must transform in ways that genuinely support teachers. This requires aligning professional development, governance frameworks, classroom practices, and technological deployment around a vision that keeps ethics, relational pedagogy, and professional judgment at the core of decision-making.
The webinar marked not an endpoint, but the beginning of a longer journey. The TTF reaffirmed its commitment to fostering continuous dialogue and peer learning through its Digital Education and AI Thematic Group, including the continuation of a webinar series on teacher professional development in low-technology environments in 2026.
The future of AI in education must remain rooted in a simple truth: technology should serve teaching, and teachers must remain the catalysts of transformation—shaping, guiding, and humanising AI’s role in our classrooms.
Learn more:
- Digital Education and AI TTF Thematic Group
- Digital Promise
- MESHGuides
- TTF Position Paper “Promoting and Protecting Teacher Agency in the Age of AI”
- Quick Guide to the Position Paper
Photo credit: ©SeventyFour/Shutterstock