Global education deans discuss in Shanghai: How can education keep up with changes in the AI era?

Large language models are changing the way knowledge is acquired, and the climate crisis, social polarization, and digital life are also changing the world young people face. From October 22 to 24, the Seventh Global Forum of Deans of Education was held at East China Normal University. Nearly 80 deans or representatives of schools of education from 30 countries and regions across five continents held discussions on artificial intelligence, teacher training, local knowledge, and educational equity, and took part in consultations on UNESCO's "Post-2030 Education Agenda." Anne Looney, Dean of the School of Education at Dublin City University in Ireland, relayed an observation by the founder of an AI company: in the face of large models, the medical field talks about transforming diagnosis, the engineering field cares about whether things that were previously impossible can now be achieved, but the education field first thinks of "students will cheat." When machines can quickly provide complete answers, curricula and assessments centered on memorization, recitation, and standard answers are inevitably affected. The deeper question is whether students are still willing to go through confusion, trial and error, and revision of their views. Ana Martínez-Alemán, Associate Dean of the Lynch School of Education and Human Development at Boston College in the United States, calls this risk "learned helplessness": convenient answers may weaken students' interest in engaging with cognitive challenges. The school offers first-year students a year-long small seminar course centered on questions such as "what makes life meaningful" and "what does the world need me to do," in which teachers model how to question, argue, and revise judgments, and record changes in students' thinking. Khon Kaen University in Thailand, meanwhile, first determines learning objectives and the thinking processes students should demonstrate, then has AI generate questions, scenarios, or feedback, which teachers review and adjust; students use AI, programming, and robots to propose solutions and must also explain, test, and improve them. The course is piloted in demonstration schools first and then iterated based on classroom evidence. These practices show that the share of knowledge transmission in teachers' work may decline, while the importance of designing tasks, judging content, and observing learning processes is rising. The educational adaptation brought by AI cannot be manifested only by adding one more tools course; it must also answer why students learn and how they form independent judgment. Technological progress has not automatically brought a fairer and more sustainable society. Farid Panjwani, Dean of the Institute for Educational Development at Aga Khan University in Pakistan, pointed out that contemporary people have more education, wealth, and technology, yet still face the climate crisis, social polarization, privacy risks, and unequal wealth distribution. The gap between the growth of knowledge and real-world improvement requires teachers to lead students to "read the world" and understand the social structures behind knowledge and their effects. The institute brings social issues, project practice, art, and literature into teacher education. Vanderbilt University in the United States starts from questions raised by public schools, designs research together with schools, and responds quickly; research topics are no longer set only within the university, and schools and communities also participate in raising questions and testing solutions. Social needs also show clear local differences. McGill University in Canada continues a half-century-long teacher education partnership with Indigenous and Inuit communities, bringing university courses into communities and respecting local languages and knowledge systems. The Higher Colleges of Technology in the United Arab Emirates found that children use Arabic dialects at home, are exposed to Modern Standard Arabic after entering kindergarten, and foreign caregivers may also bring a third language; based on this, the college added Arabic literacy, oral storytelling, and Arabic game-based teaching to early childhood teacher training, with 20% of courses taught in Arabic. This forum was linked to consultations on UNESCO's "Post-2030 Education Agenda." Relevant youth and student consultations have received about 200,000 opinions from 194 countries, and the forum discussions covered AI and human agency, teacher development, the social function of universities, and sustainable development. For the education agenda after 2030, one increasingly clear challenge is that education must both respond to rapid change and enable learners to retain the ability to judge, connect with others, and understand the society in which they live. This forum connected China's explorations, international experience, and the global education agenda, providing an equal, sincere, and professional space for dialogue and a platform for cooperation for the future of education, a community with a shared future for mankind, and the world.