Superstar Teachers in the Digital Age
Empowering educators to deliver inclusive, quality AI‑ready learning at scale
The Superstar Teachers in the Digital Age initiative aims to equip educators, including teacher trainers, with the tools, training, and confidence they need to thrive in a tech-driven world. It will use artificial intelligence (AI) and cutting-edge technology to support educators with their continuous professional development following a teacher and pedagogy first approach.
The initiative aims to empower 1 million teachers across participating countries worldwide by 2029. It will support countries in transforming teacher professional development at scale, with the goal of improving student learning through stronger teaching practices grounded in sound pedagogy and supported by AI-enabled personalized and social learning. The initial cohort of countries will help demonstrate approaches that can be adapted and scaled across additional education systems.
Teachers are the backbone of every education system, yet they are overwhelmed, under-resourced, and too often left out of the digital transformation conversation. In many countries, teachers report high levels of stress, and are considering leaving the profession due to burnout, lack of support, and growing administrative burdens. The world is facing a critical shortage of teachers, with a projected deficit of 44 million primary and secondary education teachers by 2030, with an additional 6 million needed for pre-primary education, bringing the total to 50 million educators by 2030.
There is therefore an urgent need not only to recruit and retain more teachers, but also equip existing teachers with the essential knowledge, tools, and pedagogical skills needed to thrive in an increasingly digital and AI-driven education landscape.
This is why the UNICEF Digital Education Strategy (2025–2030) puts teachers at the center of the learning transformation. The strategy aims to move beyond tech-centric solutions to focus on teacher-led, pedagogy-first innovations that scale sustainably, respond to real classroom challenges, and restore teachers’ professional dignity and purpose.
Outcomes
- Instructional practice of participating teachers are strengthened through improved knowledge and skills on topics such as digital pedagogy, digital and AI literacy, and inclusive teaching practices.
- Countries rollout scalable, context‑responsive AI‑enabled tools to support the continuous professional development of teachers. These AI-powered tools will incorporate features and functionalities based on teachers’ needs and continue to be updated in collaboration with teachers and teacher trainers, while taking into account safety and ethical guardrails, along with guidance on preserving human agency and cognition.
- AI-enabled tools are integrated into national teacher professional development systems and relevant platforms in participating countries.
- Robust evidence on effectiveness, scalability, and cost‑effectiveness is generated to inform wider replication.
Implementation
A group of countries will be supported as demonstration countries to serve as models that can be replicated across education systems in more countries. Efforts will be made to target different education levels: pre-primary, primary and secondary, and potentially non-formal education to ensure maximum impact.
This initiative will explore the use of AI to support personalized coaching to for educators, with the tool designed based on teacher needs. The focus will be on supporting teacher trainers and teachers with pedagogically sound, context-appropriate teaching practices and competencies to deliver quality, inclusive education while enhancing their digital and AI literacy. This AI-powered tool is envisioned to help educators improve instructional practice by providing targeted prompts and resources while ensuring safety guardrails are in place along with guidance on preserving human agency and cognition. The AI tool can also support teachers with other key functions, including learning content creation, lesson planning, formative assessment, and related tasks, where appropriate.
A key priority is to ensure alignment with existing national teacher competency framework(s) and educator training development programme(s) and learning materials, including integration into national digital platforms for teachers to ensure sustainability and scale. Implementation will be done with ministries of education and national teacher colleges that support pre- and in-service teacher training programmes.
This initiative will build on existing UNICEF global workstreams supporting teachers in the digital education space as well as country-level work, including but not limited to the following:
- Superstar Teacher Toolbox: modular, multilingual, mobile‑friendly resources with practical guidance on digital pedagogy, pedagogical approaches for using shared devices and using mobile message for learning. Upcoming contents include practical guidance on using AI for teaching. The toolbox can be adapted to country contexts and designed for easier integration to national teacher professional support structures. It is also available as self-paced online course.
- Resources for teachers on inclusion and using Accessible Digital Textbook (ADT) contents in classrooms. The ADT initiative is a systems-oriented effort to advance inclusive education by ensuring that all learners – regardless of ability, language or connectivity – can engage with high-quality learning materials in formats that are flexible, engaging and meet their needs. Teachers are supported to effectively use the accessible materials in teaching.
- The Learning Passport platform and learning resources, which is also used as a teacher platform in many countries. The Learning Passport provides localized, high-quality digital learning and skills for children, young people and teachers. The adaptable and portable digital learning platform enables children and young people to continue learning anywhere, at any time, including in crisis-affected settings.
- AI literacy and digital skills for teachers via the Tinkering with Tech and AI initiative, which aims to equip students and teachers with the digital skills, AI literacy, creative problem-solving mindset and other future-ready skills needed to thrive in an increasingly technology-driven world. There are resources for teachers on human-centered design and AI literacy.
- Access to curated, evidence-based AI tools for teachers via the Learning Cabinet. The tools are evaluated for their safety, scalability, and impact on learning outcomes, teaching practice or teacher workload.
- The EdTech for Good Framework, which offers a structured, evidence-based methodology to assess whether digital and AI-enabled tools are transparent, safe, educationally sound, contextually appropriate, and accessible.