Artificial Intelligence and the Right to Education: Human Rights, Equality and Human Agency in the Age of Automated Learning
Akash KumarNov 13, 202610.5281/zenodo.24207327pp. 288–30013 pages
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming education through generative AI, adaptive learning systems, automated assessment, learning analytics and algorithmic decision-making. These technologies offer significant opportunities to expand access to educational resources, personalise learning and support teachers. However, their integration into education also raises fundamental human-rights concerns relating to equality, non-discrimination, privacy, human dignity, autonomy, accountability and meaningful participation. This article examines AI in education through the contemporary international human-rights regime, with particular emphasis on the right to education. It argues that the traditional digital divide is evolving into an AI divide: inequality increasingly concerns not only access to electricity, devices and internet connectivity, but also access to capable AI systems, digital and AI literacy, quality data, local-language resources and the institutional capacity to participate in and challenge AI-mediated decisions. Drawing upon international human-rights instruments, United Nations and UNESCO materials, African regional policy and recent scholarship, the article applies the availability, accessibility, acceptability and adaptability framework to AI-enabled education. It examines algorithmic discrimination, educational data, children's rights, human agency, teachers' roles, transparency and linguistic inequality. It proposes an eight-principle human-rights framework based on meaningful universal access, equality and non-discrimination, inclusion and accessibility, privacy and data protection, human agency and oversight, transparency and explainability, accountability and effective remedy, and participation. The article concludes that the legitimacy of AI in education should not be measured by technological sophistication or efficiency alone. Rather, AI should be governed as a means of advancing the right to education while preserving human dignity, equality and agency.