The Digital Education Action Plan 2021–2027 outlines a strategic vision and fourteen key actions aimed at providing inclusive and high-quality education across Europe. This initiative emerged partly in response to the COVID-19 crisis, which significantly challenged educational systems. At the same time, rapid digital transformation has required teaching methods to evolve and integrate new technologies alongside traditional pedagogical approaches. The pandemic accelerated the adoption of new learning modalities, particularly online and hybrid learning.
However, this transition has also highlighted inequalities and challenges. Some students from disadvantaged backgrounds lack access to digital tools, while certain schools and universities do not have sufficient infrastructure or digital capacity. Moreover, many teachers across Europe do not feel adequately prepared to use digital technologies effectively. These gaps have tangible consequences for learners: more than 40% of students aged 13 to 14 in the European Union lack basic digital skills.
To address these issues, European institutions provide support to teachers and students to better understand how artificial intelligence (AI) can be used in educational contexts, including its ethical implications. One area where AI shows particular potential is foreign language learning, as intelligent tools can help learners acquire new languages more efficiently. These technologies are often integrated into blended learning approaches, combining online learning activities with traditional face-to-face instruction.
The Action Plan also aims to help educators and learners understand when to use automatic translation tools and when human expertise remains necessary, particularly for specialised contexts such as healthcare or business communication. AI tools can also enrich students’ vocabulary and provide alternative ways to approach translation tasks. In addition, speech-based language assistants represent significant progress in language acquisition, especially for pronunciation practice, which is often one of the most challenging aspects of learning a new language. Many students lack opportunities for oral interaction, yet speaking practice is essential for communicating with native speakers.
The AI report produced by the European Digital Education Hub provides practical use scenarios showing how AI can support both students and teachers in developing foreign language skills. It also promotes a broader vision of inclusive education: regardless of learners’ backgrounds or disabilities, everyone should have opportunities to benefit from AI-supported learning in order to improve their linguistic abilities.
The Digital Education Action Plan identifies four main categories of AI support in education: student-facing teaching tools, student-support systems, teacher-support tools, and system-level applications for planning and diagnostics. Associated reports, such as the Ethical Guidelines on the Use of Artificial Intelligence and Data in Teaching and Learning, describe concrete applications including AI chatbots for conversational practice, speech recognition for pronunciation feedback, automated assessment of writing and speaking, personalised vocabulary learning systems, and pedagogical uses of machine translation tools.
Several tangible outcomes have already emerged from the Digital Education Action Plan (2021–2027), including the creation of the European Digital Education Hub, the publication of ethical guidelines on artificial intelligence in education, and new European policy recommendations supporting digital skills development.
Overall, new technologies represent a major challenge for European education systems, as they have become an integral part of daily life and require teaching methods to evolve accordingly. European reports demonstrate significant progress in this field; however, important obstacles remain, particularly unequal access to digital resources and persistent social inequalities between regions and countries. Addressing these challenges will be essential to ensure that digital innovation contributes to inclusive and effective education for all learners.
Discover here the Digital Education Action Plan 2021-2027 and the AI report:
https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/9bb60fb1-b42a-11ee-b164-01aa75ed71a1
https://education.ec.europa.eu/focus-topics/digital-education/actions
