Release date：2025.06.16
The integration of AI into education is rapidly transforming the landscape of teaching, learning, and institutional management worldwide. In East Asia, the adoption of AI technologies, including Generative AI, is currently experiencing a significant surge, with innovative products and solutions emerging at an unprecedented pace. Against this backdrop, leaders and educators within East Asia's higher education systems urgently require a collaborative platform to share reform experiences, draw cross-border insights, and collectively address challenges in effectively integrating AI into higher education ecosystems.
Themed 'Fostering an AI-enabled Higher Education Ecosystem', the 2025 High-Level Policy Dialogue in East Asia will be held in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, on 30 June 2025. The event is co-organised by UNESCO Regional Office for East Asia (UNESCO Beijing), the Ministry of Education of Mongolia, Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Communications of Mongolia, Mongolian National Commission for UNESCO (MNCU), Mongolian University of Science and Technology (MUST, IIOE Mongolia National Centre), and the International Centre for Higher Education Innovation under the auspices of UNESCO (UNESCO-ICHEI), with the support of China Pocy Group Co., Ltd. The event will gather higher education stakeholders in the region and beyond, to collectively explore the opportunities and challenges that artificial intelligence (AI) technologies bring to local higher education systems, analyse specific needs and challenges, and to demonstrate promising cases of AI application in higher education. The event also serves as a bridge to facilitate industry-academia and multilateral. As part of the event, UNESCO and UNESCO-ICHEI will unveil several significant programme outcomes, supporting the digital transformation of higher education across the region.
Meeting Background
In 2024, UNESCO-ICHEI, in partnership with UNESCO headquarters and its field offices, international organisations, partner higher education institutions (HEIs), and enterprises, hosted a series of high-level regional policy dialogues in Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and Africa. These dialogues established mechanisms for policymakers and other relevant stakeholders to explore AI integration in higher education, showcase good practices, and seek solutions to local challenges.
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The 2025 High-Level Policy Dialogue in East Asia aims at further facilitating the integration of AI technologies in higher education in the region, implementing UNESCO's Higher Education Roadmap 2030: Beyond Limits – New Ways to Reinvent Higher Education to accelerate progress toward the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4).
Highlights
Launch the joint action plan on capacity-building and the recognition of the Mongolian higher education workforce's digital and AI competencies
During the dialogue, the IIOE Mongolia National Centre and UNESCO-ICHEI will unveil the joint action plan on capacity-building and the recognition of the Mongolian higher education workforce's digital and AI competencies. Mongolia has long faced challenges such as unequal distribution of educational resources and insufficient digital literacy among educators. These issues are particularly acute in the field of AI education, where the pace of teachers' skill development struggles to keep up with rapid technological advancements, making digital transformation an urgent priority. Building on the outcomes of previous initiatives, the joint action plan aims to deepen collaboration by integrating the practical experience of the IIOE Micro-Certification Project to develop a more robust framework for cultivating digital and AI competencies. It also seeks to strengthen certification mechanisms by aligning the IIOE Micro-Certification Project with Mongolia's faculty certification systems, and to expand its reach by prioritising the enhancement of AI application capabilities among university faculty. This joint action not only reflects the Mongolian government's strong commitment to improving educators' digital capabilities but also marks a new stage of collaboration between UNESCO-ICHEI and local higher education institutions.
Launch the regional report titled Digital Leap in East Asia: A Regional Synthesis on Higher Education Transformation
UNESCO Regional Office for East Asia (UNESCO Beijing) and UNESCO-ICHEI will officially launch the regional report titled Digital Leap in East Asia: A Regional Synthesis on Higher Education Transformation. The report focuses on digital transformation practices and emerging trends in higher education across four East Asian countries: China, Japan, Mongolia, and South Korea. It provides comprehensive analysis of the integration and application of digital technologies and AI in higher education, highlighting achievements and exemplary cases from across the East Asian region. The report's launch serves as a call to action for policymakers, educators, and relevant stakeholders. It advocates for proactive embrace of digital transformation and the full utilisation of technological capabilities to enhance teaching and learning quality, preparing the younger generation to meet the multifaceted challenges of the 21st century.
Present the DeepSeek-empowered IIOE learning platform and its AI-related course curriculum
The IIOE platform has integrated DeepSeek's open-source large language model technology to provide multilingual, round-the-clock technical support for educators across more than 120 institutions in 41 countries worldwide. This initiative aims to lower barriers for developing nations to access quality AI educational resources. The newly launched "AI+" disciplinary curriculum system for 2025 features core advantages including interdisciplinary integration, dynamic updating mechanisms, and practice-oriented learning approaches. Showcased at the Policy Dialogue in East Asia platform, this practice offers a scalable model for AI-enabled higher education globally and provides valuable insights for advancing educational equity worldwide.
Enhance enterprise engagement and partnerships by showcasing innovative AI-related solutions
The policy dialogue will invite a number of technology companies, including Chimege Systems LLC (Mongolia), Best Tech Inc. (South Korea), NetDragon Websoft Inc., Guangzhou Dazzleview Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., and Wisdom Garden Holdings Limited, to share and demonstrate solutions and practical cases on enabling AI-driven transformation of higher education. Industry representatives will discuss how to closely follow the actual needs of local HEIs, explore new ways of cooperation in key areas such as technological innovation, content co-development, and teaching facility upgrading, and focus on establishing substantive industry-academia integration frameworks, aiming to comprehensively improve the digital skills and AI literacy of higher education workforce.
Establish a policy dialogue and exchange mechanism for multi-stakeholders in East Asia and beyond to discuss policy and initiatives
Digital economy is a key driver of the regional development, and East Asia demonstrates diverse patterns in the application of artificial intelligence technologies. Uneven development across the region presents countries with a range of distinct challenges — from ethical standards and teachers' digital competencies to the urban–rural digital divide and limitations in local resources. Against this backdrop, the High-Level Policy Dialogue in East Asia will serve as a vital platform to facilitate the analysis of regional needs and challenges in higher education. It will promote the establishment of a policy dialogue and exchange mechanism among multi-stakeholders across East Asia, enabling collaborative discussions on policies and initiatives for integrating AI into higher education, and showcasing feasible, actionable solutions. This mechanism will help East Asian countries move beyond isolated national efforts and foster regional synergy in responding to the transformation of AI in education.
Meeting Agenda
The meeting will feature in-depth discussions around four core sessions:
Session I: Policy and Governance on AI Integration in Higher Education
Session II: Enhancement of AI Proficiency in the Higher Education Workforce
Session III: Industry-Academia Cooperation and Innovative Partnerships
Session IV: Advancing Learning and Innovation in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET)
Meeting Format Language
The meeting will be held in-person and live streamed via the ZOOM platform. The meeting will be conducted in English and Mongolian, with simultaneous interpretation services provided for both languages.
For registration details and participation information, please follow the UNESCO-ICHEI official WeChat account, where event updates will be released promptly. Join us for this pivotal dialogue!
