Paris: The State of Qatar has concluded its participation in an international UNESCO seminar in Paris with calls for teachers, school leaders and education practitioners to play a greater role in shaping global education policy as artificial intelligence and new technologies rapidly transform classrooms.
The two-day meeting, organized in cooperation with the International Forum of Inclusion Practitioners (IFIP), brought together education professionals and policymakers, with Qatar represented by the Ministry of Education and Higher Education.
A key outcome was the signing of an agreement establishing the Global Education Group, designed to provide a more structured international platform for teachers, school leaders and education institutions to contribute to discussions on the future of education.
The initiative aims to strengthen the role of practical, frontline experience in international policymaking and help bridge the gap between those who design education policies and those responsible for implementing them.
Speaking to Qatar News Agency (QNA), Dr Rania Yousri Mohammed, director of the Ministry's Department of Private Schools and Kindergartens and acting director of its Schools Licensing Department, welcomed the initiative.
She said Qatar viewed the creation of the group under UNESCO's supervision as an important development in global education policymaking, particularly because it could help move the sector away from a top-down approach towards one in which teachers, school leaders, practitioners and students have a role in shaping education policy.
Dr Mohammed, who was invited to become one of the group's founding members, said the role represented a responsibility rather than simply an honor.
She said it would provide an opportunity to bring Qatar's experience and the voice of education practitioners to the international stage, while helping narrow the gap between policymakers and those implementing education policies on the ground.
She argued that teachers should not be the last people to hear about education policies, but should be involved in shaping them from the outset.
The seminar examined a range of issues, including the use of AI in education, inclusive education, vocational skills and training, educational innovation, and closer cooperation between teachers, school leaders and policymakers.
Participants also discussed how to move from dialogue to practical action by creating mechanisms that give practitioners a meaningful role in policymaking, promote responsible use of technology and AI, and prepare students for future skills without widening existing inequalities.
Dr Mohammed said the success of the Global Education Group should not be measured by the number of meetings it holds or participants it attracts.
Instead, she said, its impact should be judged by whether it can turn the experience and concerns of education practitioners into recommendations, policies and measurable results.
She identified three priorities: ensuring genuine and balanced representation of practitioners from different parts of the world; establishing a clear route through which recommendations can reach policymakers and international institutions; and creating a follow-up mechanism to measure how recommendations are translated into policies or projects.
Qatar, she said, could contribute experience in areas including educational innovation, empowering schools and teachers, public-private partnerships, inclusive education and linking education with national development.
She added that Qatar could also serve as a testing ground for new education initiatives, allowing their impact to be assessed and the results shared internationally.
The seminar also considered the role of education as a public good and a human right, particularly at a time when technological change risks increasing inequalities between countries and communities.
Dr Mohamed said Qatar's experience in social responsibility could provide another example for international discussion.
She pointed to a social responsibility project that provided more than 17,000 free or subsidized school places for eligible students, describing it as an example of how education policy can produce a direct social impact.
The initiative, she said, reflected a shared responsibility between the government, schools and wider society, with schools acting not simply as education providers but as partners in expanding access and promoting equal opportunities.
She said the model demonstrated that innovation in education was not limited to technology and curricula, but could also involve policy, financing and community partnerships.
Dr Mohammed described Qatar's participation in the new global group as an opportunity both to share national experience and learn from other countries, saying successful national approaches could become part of a wider form of "educational diplomacy".
She said Qatar's message was that ensuring the right to education was a shared social responsibility and could not rest with governments alone.
The discussions in Paris also focused on artificial intelligence, with participants examining how technology could be introduced without undermining the human relationship at the heart of education.
The Global Education Group, she said, could help ensure that the debate over AI in education included the experience of practitioners rather than being dominated by technology specialists.
The objective, she said, should be to use AI to make education "better and more human", rather than allowing technology to make it less human.
Qatar has called for education systems to focus more closely on future skills while urging stronger international action to protect the right to education during conflicts and emergencies.
Dr Mohammed said preparing young people for a rapidly changing labor market would be a major challenge in the coming years.
She said Qatar could play a greater role in developing technical and vocational education, digital skills, artificial intelligence and entrepreneurship, while strengthening links between educational institutions and economic sectors.
Qatar's education and research infrastructure, international partnerships and economic ambitions could provide opportunities to test new models of skills-based education and link learning more closely to economic needs, she added.
She said the proposed Global Education Group could give teachers and school leaders a stronger voice in discussions on future skills, including identifying the abilities students increasingly need and informing how curricula and training should evolve.
Dr Mohammed stressed that investment in the future should not be understood simply as investment in technology.
"The real investment in the future is in the human being capable of using, developing and creating technology," she said.
Protecting education during conflicts was another key issue discussed at the seminar.
Dr Mohammed said recent crises had shown that education was often among the first sectors to suffer when conflict breaks out, even though children may need the stability and protection provided by schools more than ever.
Education, she said, should not be treated as a service that can be postponed until a crisis ends, but should form part of the humanitarian response from the outset.
She called for systems capable of continuing during emergencies through alternative learning platforms, safe spaces, psychological and educational support, protection for teachers, and mechanisms to recognize learning and qualifications when children move between countries.
She also said the Global Education Group could give teachers and practitioners working in conflict zones a direct voice in international discussions. Policymakers, she added, should listen to those working on the ground when designing responses to education crises.
Qatar expects UNESCO to play a greater role in international coordination, developing standards, protecting educational institutions, collecting data and helping countries build more resilient education systems, she said.
Dr Mohamed said the credibility of the proposed Paris Framework for Action 2026 would depend on whether its commitments translated into measurable results.
The value of the framework, she said, should be judged not by what is announced during the seminar but by what happens afterwards.
She called for a permanent mechanism linking education practitioners with international decision-making, with clear pathways for influencing policy, measurable indicators and a timetable for monitoring progress.
Key priorities from the discussions included preserving education as a human right and public good in the age of AI, keeping teachers at the center of digital transformation, strengthening AI governance and future skills, and ensuring technology does not deepen educational inequalities.
For Dr Mohammed, the group's success will ultimately depend on whether it can turn practitioners' recommendations into policy and measurable impact.
She added that Qatar's position among the group's invited founding members would allow it to help shape the initiative from an early stage, share its experience and learn from international approaches to education.
