On 3 September 2024, Dr Lucianne Zammit from the University's Faculty of Education, delivered a presentation at the UNESCO Digital Learning Week at UNESCO’s Headquarters in Paris.

Her co-presenters were Mr Roger Tirazona and Ms Kirby Caruana, co-Heads of Department for Ethics within the Ministry for Education, Sport, Youth, Research and Innovation (MEYR)

This presentation marked a significant milestone in the ongoing collaboration between the University of Malta and MEYR, resulting in collaborative efforts in syllabus development, national assessment, and teacher training.

Digital Learning Week is UNESCO's flagship annual event dedicated to digital education and transforming learning through technology. The event brings together a diverse community of digital education leaders, policymakers, researchers, and practitioners from UN agencies, governments, NGOs, and the private sector, with the goal of advancing the use of technology in education. The Maltese team’s proposal was selected from 500 submissions, with only 70 making the final cut. The presentation focused on Malta’s efforts to integrate the ethics of Artificial Intelligence into the national curriculum, particularly within the subject of Ethics, which has been taught in Maltese primary, middle and secondary schools since 2014.

Educational world leaders, educators, researchers, and technologists showed great interest in the new national Ethics syllabi that have just been launched and presented at UNESCO’s prestigious global stage, as well as the upcoming efforts for teacher training in the area of AI in ethics education.

This conference also marked UNESCO’s launch of two important documents; the AI Competency Framework for Teachers and the AI Competency Framework for Students, both of which put the ethics of AI at the forefront.

Dr Lucianne Zammit is a lecturer within the Department of Educational Studies, Faculty of Education. She coordinates the Ethics programme, which consists of the Postgraduate Certificate for the Teaching of Ethics in Schools and the Masters in Teaching and Learning (Ethics). She is also the coordinator of the Platform for the Teaching of Ethics in Schools.