Human Right to Education in the Age of Innovations and Smart Technologies

The aim of this monograph is to delve into the complexity of issues brought by the impact of versatile and disruptive technological innovations and advancements on the human right to education. It aims to identify and discuss the principal challenges and dilemmas, propose potential solutions and encourage further scholarly debate aimed at fostering greater coherence across the legal and educational domains in the pursuit of protecting this fundamental right.

The following topics are discussed in order to achieve the aim of this monograph:

• The role of digital education to the fundamental right to education and related human rights;

• The meaning and tasks of the new social paradigm in developing Science4all;

• Advantages of new technologies for provision of education and virtual mobility;

• Importance of modern technologies in special areas such as financial literacy or modern crime investigation;

• Challenges and possible solutions safeguarding the social justice and human rights in distance learning;

• Relevant issues for the debate on future education and guarantees of the right to education.

Contributions¹

Miglė Laukytė in the chapter Artificial Intelligence in Education: Interests of and Benefits for Children, Teachers and Schools discusses how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing the field of education and elaborates on the possible impact of these changes. The chapter addresses the challenges posed to the main stakeholders, that is, pupils and their families, teachers, and institutions of primary and secondary education. In particular, the goal is to address the rights of the children and teachers, the duties of educational institutions, and the role of AI in this context: This chapter focuses on pupils’ right to education and teachers’ right to academic freedom within the context of 5 ways in which AI can be deployed in education (Plitnichenko, 2020). In addition, the educational institutions have a corresponding duty to protect and ensure these rights, and the big question is whether AI is an asset or a liability in achieving this goal. The chapter looks at the difficulties to turn AI into an asset and make it functional in ensuring these rights, bearing in mind the specificities of AI in the educational domain, such as extreme vulnerability of pupils (who are mainly minors), the continuous threats of profiling and manipulation that all citizens are becoming more and more aware of, and, finally, the importance of the educational sector for our democracies.

Julija Kalpokienė. Digitization in Education and the Social Divide: A Blessing or a Curse? The current high prominence of the right to education is in contrast to its framing in international law, namely, as part of the economic, social, and cultural rights that had historically been relegated to a second-order status with state commitments being softened to progressive realization of the rights in question. Nevertheless, education has been more recently reframed as the enabler of societal progress and the realization of other rights, including civil and political ones. This puts the onus on states to double down on their efforts to progressively realize full enjoyment of the right to education beyond primary education (which is the minimum requirement) into secondary education and do so without outsourcing provision of education to other actors, such as private education technology companies. Nevertheless, digitization of education, including its transfer to online providers, is often touted as a cost-effective and future-proof solution even beyond emergency situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Problematically, such solutions are premised upon some major preconditions, such as stable connectivity, reliable power supply, device ownership, digital literacy skills, etc., which cannot be taken for granted in both developing countries but also in the more deprived regions of developed countries. Also, such education provision is likely to lead to inequalities as premium tools are unlikely to be universally available. A further matter of note is that the shift away from brick-and-mortar to online provision of education would be detrimental to disadvantaged groups (based on gender, ethnicity, etc. that would be stuck in unfavorable environments without escaping it during the process of education). Hence, it becomes evident that not only there exists a complicated relationship between digitization of learning and progressive realization of the right to education but also the overreliance on technology can have a regressive effect.

Stefan Kirchner in his article Digital Education as Legal Obligation discusses the decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Kotilainen v. Finland, where it confirmed that states have a positive obligation under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to protect school students against risks to their lives if such risks are predictable analyses how this decision is suitable for the COVID-19 pandemic. The author considers that COVID-19 pandemic poses a predictable risk, not only to human life but also to human health, including for children. But there are also concerns about access to education, in particular in countries which in the past had not been very committed to digital education. Germany is one of the few European countries which outlaws homeschooling, with some of its federal states even threatening parents with jail. Despite the ongoing pandemic, technical solutions are abandoned over data protection concerns and children in classes 1–6 are legally obliged to attend classes in person. With limited possibilities for distancing, mixed mask-wearing records and ventilation as the key strategy, parents have to choose between risking a violation of criminal law norms protecting their children and the school law. Technical solutions could solve this problem and protect human health. After Kotilainen, the question is to be asked whether the ECHR actually requires states to refrain from in-person classes and to employ technical teaching solutions. Using literature research of primary (legislation), secondary (judgments) and tertiary (academic writings) legal literature, the author seeks to determine the extent of the legal obligations under the ECHR and to answer the question of when outside threats, such as COVID-19, create an obligation to employ remote teaching technologies.

In the paper Science4all: Prospects and Practice Tomas Berkmanas, Julija Kiršienė & Saulė Milčiuvienė present with the novel approach to what is today known as Open Science. Authors offer another umbrella term – Science for All (abbreviated as Science4All) – allowing to cover more elements of political agenda in relation to science and its contemporary societal role. These elements are Open Science itself (in a narrower sense), Public Engagement in Research and Innovation (PERI), and Science Communication (SC). Accordingly, the paper provides with more holistic overview and analysis of the corresponding field. Firstly, the focus is Open Science itself, especially its evolution over the past 20 years. The rapid proliferation of open science ideas and initiatives is observed since the Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002) and Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (2003). It is noted that the understanding of openness and transparency of research was eventually widened by opening not only publications, but also research data. Furthermore, it is examined how policy of open science is changing academic culture and what resources are needed for turning principles into practices. Secondly, in relation to PERI, certain conceptual issues are analyzed focusing on the circulation of the variety of terms in this field (as Citizen Science, Citizen Engagement, PERI itself); later, challenges related to the rapid development of the application of PERI are overviewed. Finally, in relation to SC, certain terminological issues are resolved; later, technological & digitalization-related challenges (especially related to the fake news phenomenon) to SC are analyzed and certain solutions and suggestions for improvement offered.

The chapter Academic Networking in Higher Education Through Virtual Mobility prepared by Airina Volungevičienė, Margarita Teresevičienė, Estela Daukšienė focuses on virtual mobility (VM) theoretical perspectives and a case study of three different VM implementation scenarios. It is based on the practices of university collaboration and virtual mobility implementation in five phases: decision making, curriculum design, VM implementation, evaluation, and recognition. VM primarily serves the modernization and internationalization of HE by bringing into focus the global, intercultural, and international dimensions of each country, university and study program which offers VM mode. This type of learning removes institutional barriers to learning but requires careful preparation and decision-making among partner universities. VM may result in improved learning outcomes, new product development, acquisition of sociocultural competences, promotion of intercultural competences, and an opportunity to participate in an international collaboration for those who are not able to participate in activities requiring physical mobility. Course preparation or adaptation for VM requires time and the collaboration of teachers in international and intercultural groups. The time needed for preparation for these activities depends on teacher experience and requires delivery, technical, didactic, administrative, or design support for teachers. To fully realize the potential of VM, international student groups should be formed, and activities should be assigned to students working in international/intercultural groups. The courses delivered in VM, are usually recognized by the students’ home HE institution; while recognition of teacher VM remains unclear at the teachers’ home institution, and is usually recognized by project certificates, issued by the course coordinating institution.

The chapter Challenges facing the safeguarding of social justice in schools during the transition to distance learning by Aušra Rutkienė, Alvyra Galkienė & Ona Monkevičienė presents research results in the context of the principles of social justice in education: equal opportunities; accessibility; recognition of differences and provision of options; and compensation. Results reveal that all these principles were affected during the transformation of educational processes from contact to distance learning. The study revealed that student emotional-social difficulties were experienced more strongly due to differences between various groups of students. These differences presented as barriers to full involvement in the educational process. Limited equal opportunities were most experienced by students with special educational needs as the teaching principles and support system most usually employed applied during contact education, which became ineffective during distance education. The recognition of student differences and the provision of options in the educational process strengthened social justice and increased access to education for all students.