The GETs model is presented at an international UNESCO event on education.

The experience of the GETs (Treatment and Education Groups), from the Rio de Janeiro municipal network, was selected by UNESCO. Photo: Press Release

The Municipal Education Department of Rio de Janeiro participated in the UNESCO Digital Learning Week (DLW) in Paris, an annual international event dedicated to the challenges and opportunities related to the use of technology and artificial intelligence in education. Held between September 8 and 11, the meeting brought together governments, experts, researchers, and representatives of education networks from different parts of the world.

The experience of the Rio de Janeiro municipal school system was selected by UNESCO to be presented at the panel “Cultivating critical thinking and preserving cultural identity,” which also included projects and experiences from South Korea, Palestine, Finland, and Paraná.

Representing Rio de Janeiro, the Technological Educational Gymnasiums (GETs) were presented on the panel with the theme "Expanding learning horizons through human-centred AI in Rio de Janeiro." The presentation showed how the model developed by the municipal network uses maker culture, technology, and hands-on projects as tools to expand learning possibilities, stimulate creativity, strengthen a sense of belonging, and contribute to student retention in school, especially in areas of greater social vulnerability.

Participation in DLW also presented Rio de Janeiro's strategy to become the first municipality to have guidelines for the use and care of artificial intelligence in education from an ethical, critical, creative, and human-centered perspective. The municipality was the first in Brazil to territorialise the artificial intelligence guidelines being developed by the Ministry of Education (MEC), in partnership with UNESCO in Brazil.

The Secretariat is also preparing to publish its own guidelines for the use of artificial intelligence in the municipal education network, which should be announced starting in October.

Rio de Janeiro will host Digital Learning Week Brazil.

At the same event, the Brazilian Ministry of Education (MEC), in cooperation with UNESCO in Brazil, announced the first edition of Digital Learning Week Brazil, which will be held in Rio de Janeiro. The event will take place on November 30th, December 1st and 2nd, at the Museum of Tomorrow, with the Rio de Janeiro Municipal Department of Education as a territorial implementation partner.

This will be the first edition of the event held outside of Paris, expanding the international debate on technology, artificial intelligence, and education to Brazil.
The DLW Brasil event reinforces Rio de Janeiro's role in building public policies focused on educational innovation and expands the space for the exchange of experiences between education networks, governments, experts, and national and international institutions.

For the Municipal Department of Education, the GETs experience represents a strategy for territorializing innovation, bringing technology and education closer to the reality of students and their communities. More than just expanding access to digital tools, the goal is to train students capable of using technology and artificial intelligence in a critical, ethical, creative way, connected to their culture and the context in which they live.