INTRODUCING THE
Digital Education
Leadership Programme
Co-developed by Cambridge, UNICEF and the Global Partnership for Education (GPE)
INTRODUCING THE
Digital Education
Leadership Programme
Co-developed by Cambridge, UNICEF and the Global Partnership for Education (GPE)
How can technology make education more inclusive, equitable and effective for all?
That is a question governments around the world have been racing to answer. Our new Digital Education Leadership Programme supported global leaders to find solutions.
Co-designed by Cambridge, UNICEF and the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), the five-month programme empowered more than 40 leaders from across 17 countries to:
- analyse and strengthen their existing national digital education plans
- identify gaps, opportunities, and areas for improvement in their digital education ecosystems today
- propose actionable recommendations to inform policy or implement in their ministry or agency.
In the process, delegates developed approaches to help ensure the benefits of technology extended to the most marginalised learners. They also championed teachers as co-creators of change.
By the end of the programme, participants had developed their knowledge, skills and networks, and tools to design and implement digital education solutions. They also became part of an active global community of leaders, working together to deliver results at scale and across borders.
Tech4Ed and Learning Pioneers: the perfect pairing to drive change
It takes great leadership to turn educational promises and policies into sustainable reality on a system level. This programme supported those leaders.
The Digital Education Leadership Programme helped shape the future of education by bringing together the cohorts of the Tech4Ed and Learning Pioneers programmes.
GPE established the Tech4Ed initiative to strengthen the capacity of and within partner countries to use technology to accelerate system transformation efforts. The initiative is currently supporting El Salvador, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Lao PDR, Lesotho, Malawi, Maldives and Tajikistan to deliver national education priorities.
UNICEF’s Learning Pioneers Programme invites leaders from Egypt, Ghana, Malaysia, Rwanda, Uzbekistan, Zimbabwe, Côte d’Ivoire, Jordan, Lao PDR, Pakistan, Tanzania and Ukraine to work with the UNICEF Global Learning Innovation Hub. They will design their ideal future education systems, scale promising EdTech solutions and digital education initiatives, and become regional and global influencers in digital learning. The programme uses a cohort-based model to support selected countries in identifying, piloting and learning from education technology aligned to national education goals.
By bringing leaders from Tech4Ed and Learning Pioneers countries together, the Digital Education Leadership Programme created a powerful new community with shared goals. Together, this community works to make digital learning more inclusive and accessible to all.
Designed to transform at the pace of change
Connecting our curriculum to the Six Pillars Framework
One of the toughest parts of digital transformation in education is the sheer pace of change. So how can we help policymakers keep up, and even get ahead?
Building a robust education technology ecosystem happens when partners work together across sectors and borders, sharing common approaches and tools.
In 2024, partners in the Digital Transformation Collaborative, including UNESCO, UNICEF, GPE, Cambridge, and over 40 public and private sector organisations, developed the Six Pillars Framework. It is already helping nations shift from rigid or piecemeal transformation approaches to designing complete, tech-first systems that put humans at the heart.
We shaped our Digital Education Leadership Programme curriculum to follow that framework.
The programme used a blended learning model. Over seven modules, made up of online learning, Q&As, global case studies and live lectures, the curriculum covered the framework’s essential outer layer and the six pillars that sit inside it – with added emphasis on artificial intelligence (AI).
Online learning platform
Online learning platform
And, just like the framework, we guided participants through a systems-thinking journey from strategic vision and governance to implementation and evaluation.
Here is an overview of each module.
Module one: Technology in education system transformation
True transformation begins when leaders have a clear view of the strengths, gaps and places to improve in their current digital education plans. In this module, delegates use systems thinking to analyse national digital education visions and strategies. That includes evaluating whether their current approach is equitable, inclusive and learning-centred, and whether it meets broader education policy goals.
Module two: Co-ordination and leadership
It takes a co-ordinated community, strong leadership and effective governance structures to build sustainable education technology systems. In this module, leaders develop plans for consulting with different partners and implementing comprehensive national digital transformation roadmaps, bringing multiple stakeholders on the journey.
Module three: Culture and capacity
Teachers are at the heart of digital transformation in the classroom. This module sees delegates design professional development programmes to build educators’ digital skills at scale.
Module four: Content and solutions
User-friendly teaching content, tools and platforms are easier to scale. In this module, leaders evaluate current solutions for safety, scalability, inclusivity and impact. And they explore approaches for integrating evidence-based frameworks into national procurement policies and decision-making processes.
Module five: Data, AI and evidence
Gathering data is not as challenging as using it effectively. In this module, leaders identify the places where technology can help them collect, analyse and use data. And they begin developing data-driven decision-making systems they can integrate into platforms and learning analytics. So data becomes meaningful and useful for educators, learners, parents and leaders alike.
Module six: Connectivity and infrastructure
A digital education system will only be as strong as its technical infrastructure. Electricity, internet access, hardware, devices and software are all part of that picture. In this module, leaders create infrastructure strategies to address the connectivity gaps in their countries and propose plans to create equitable access to technology.
Module seven: Cost and sustainability
Digital reforms will always need funding. In this module, delegates assess funding and formal budgets they have available and explore using innovative financing models to close budget gaps and build sustainable solutions.
“The Digital Education Leadership Programme was incredibly valuable to me while working in digital transformation in Ukraine. The programme was well-structured, bringing together a mix of theory and background content with real-life setting application.”
Nelson Rodrigues
Education Specialist, UNICEF Ukraine
Everything on the programme linked to leaders’ existing knowledge-sharing platforms, such as the Gateways to Public Digital Learning and Tech4Ed learning exchanges.
Participants continually explored how to take their learning into their own contexts and apply it to their systems to positively impact students’ outcomes.
“This learning is directly shaping our current work on Ukraine’s draft Digital Transformation Strategy for Education and Science to 2030. After the first modules, my colleagues and I began to look closely at the interconnections between our six strategic goals, identifying cross-cutting priorities with system-wide ripple effects.”
Tetiana Dalievska
Digital Transformation Directorate, Ministry of Education and Science, Ukraine
“The programme enriched my leadership by demonstrating how to bridge the gap between national policy and classroom reality through a shift from temporary interventions to sustainable system-wide integration. Learning from cross-country experiences equipped me to refine strategies to ensure that teachers’ empowerment is grounded in actual needs rather than assumptions.”
Diane Sengati
Head of ICT in Education, Rwanda Basic Education Board (REB)
From global tools to personal action plans
“Leaders now have strong scaffolding to use technology to improve education, such as the Six Pillars Framework. This programme brought us all together to turn toolkits into confident action. It built community, created shared language and understanding, and helped teams deliver inclusive, sustainable change.”
The Digital Education Leadership Programme brought together multiple frameworks and tools that delegates can adapted into personal action plans for educational change. Those tools included:
- Digital Transformation Maturity Assessment: Before every module, delegates completed a Digital Transformation Maturity Assessment for their nation, organised around the Six Pillars Framework.
- EdTech for Good framework: Leaders used this framework, which is part of the 'Content and solutions' module, to assess whether digital teaching and learning solutions would be effective and accessible or if they needed to adapt them further to include students with special needs.
- UNESCO’s AI Competency Framework for Teachers and ICT Competency Framework for Teachers formed part of the same 'Content and solutions' module to guide teachers on responsibly using AI in the classroom.
- The Giga approach for connecting every school in the world to the internet formed part of the 'Connectivity and infrastructure' module.
- The UNESCO-UNICEF-ITU Charter for Public Digital Learning Platforms launched in March 2026 to put public needs and purposes in the driving seat of change.
- In our 'Cost and sustainability' module we explored techniques to make the most of the models in UNESCO’s Innovative Financing Toolkit.
With every tool and framework, we gave participants the space to experiment, debate and explore – finding the best way to apply relevant frameworks to their national contexts.
“The Digital Education Programme was a strong success, enabling delegates to collaborate across countries and education systems to champion and implement responsible approaches to digital transformation.
We thank our partners at UNICEF and the Global Partnership for Education for their shared vision and support.
Congratulations to all the leaders who completed the programme. Your commitment has been inspiring, and we are proud of the impact you are already driving across your systems."
Jane Mann
Managing Director, Partnership for Education, Cambridge University Press & Assessment
“Through the programme, I learned practical strategies for strengthening system level alignment such as establishing shared standards, streamlining stakeholder roles, and using data to monitor progress. These lessons will directly inform how I approach coordination efforts within the Ministry and across districts, ensuring that digital learning initiatives are not implemented in silos but rather contribute to the broader goals of the Education Strategic Plan 2018-2030 and the ICT in Education Policy in Ghana.”
Eric Balangtaa
Education Officer, UNICEF
Meet the delegates
More than 40 delegates, from 17 countries formed the cohort of 2026. They are all advocates for innovation at home and around the world.
Digital Education Leadership Programme delegates
Country
Delegates
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Meet the team
We are grateful to the partners and people who shared their time and expertise to make the programme possible.
Speakers
Speakers on the programme included leaders from UNICEF, GPE and Cambridge as well as:
- The Hon. Conrad Sackey, Minister, Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education, Sierra Leone
- Chris Fabian, Lead, Digital Inclusion, UNICEF and Co-Founder/Co-Lead, Giga
- Dr David Hollow, Research Director, EdTech Hub
- Gouri Gupta, Project Director, EdTech, Central Square Foundation
- Dr Kevin Martin, Managing Director, Digital Education Futures Initiative, Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge
- Dr Madiha Khan, Director of Research & Consultancy, Educate Ventures Research
- Mike Trucano, the World Bank and Brookings Institution
- Paul Atherton, Founder and CEO, Fab AI
- Verna Lalbeharie, Executive Director, EdTech Hub
Our team
This is the team from UNICEF, GPE and Cambridge who championed the programme day to day.
- Carla Aerts, Interdisciplinary Education Futures Specialist
- Chris McBurnie, Tech4Ed Coordinator, Global Partnership for Education
- Juan-Pablo Giraldo Ospino, Education Specialist, UNICEF
- Juliette Norrmén-Smith, Innovation Specialist, UNICEF
- Lucy Swindells, Programme Manager, Partnership for Education, Cambridge University Press & Assessment
- Niall McNulty, AI Lead, Cambridge University Press & Assessment
Questions? Contact us on digital.ed@cambridge.org
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