ProFuturo Observatory

For two decades, we have believed that more screens mean more education. Frank Van Cappelle, UNICEF’s Global Lead for Digital Education, prefers to question that assumption. From Finland, where UNICEF’s Global Learning Hub is based, he warns that we have spent years digitising without learning very much. His prescription sounds simple: less technological fetishism, better-prepared teachers, and tools that can reach even places without internet access. He speaks of “offline” artificial intelligence and of restoring humanity to learning. His organisation does not aim to revolutionise everything, but rather to bring a bit of common sense back into the debate: technology should serve children, not the other way around.

For decades, we took universal education for granted as an irreversible achievement, a definitive conquest of progress. Today we know that it is not: schools waver, equality erodes, and the old Enlightenment pact begins to crack. In this interview, Lucas Gortázar, researcher and co-author with Juan Manuel Moreno of Universal Education: Why the Most Successful Project in History Generates Discontent and New Inequalities, dissects the educational crisis and identifies teachers—anonymous, fragile, indispensable—as the strongest hope for rebuilding the future of a system in crisis.

Can artificial intelligence help close educational gaps in Latin America? Axel Rivas, expert in educational innovation and coordinator of the study The Arrival of AI in Latin American Education: Under Construction, analyzes the emerging impact of these technologies, warns about the risks of exclusion, and emphasizes the key role of the State in transforming this new opportunity into an inclusive and sustainable education policy.

Artificial intelligence hasn’t come to do the same things faster. It has come to change the rules. In this interview, Neus Lorenzo, a specialist in pedagogy and innovation and a board member of ODITE, frames the emergence of AI in education not as a technical breakthrough, but as a cultural shift. Something comparable, she says, to the invention of writing. From there, everything else follows: access, inclusion, boundaries, criteria. And one question hovers over our reality, with no immediate answer: will we know how to use it without losing ourselves in it?

When did we stop asking questions in the classroom, and why? Does a school designed for the industrial age still make sense? And what if it’s not the “problem” many see it as, but part of the solution? In this interview, education, technology, and creativity expert Rodrigo Fábrega offers a plot twist: rather than fearing technology, we should learn to shape it as a tool for imagining, creating, and transforming education.

For decades, the educational debate has revolved around content, methodologies, and assessment. But have we truly reflected on the real purpose of education? Today, it is a system obsessed with results and grades. But what happened to the kind of education that shapes, transforms, and awakens? In this conversation, Carlos Magro invites us to question the current model, explore the limitations of today’s teaching, and envision an education that prioritizes learning, critical thinking, and a passion for knowledge.