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Editorial
As we publish the July issue of the Journal in 2023, the fourth and final meeting of 
Education Working Group (EdWG) of G20 under India's presidency got over in Pune 
on 20-21 June, 2023. The outcomes of this meeting and three previous meetings 
of EdWG, which were held in Chennai (from 31st January to 2nd February, 2023), 
Amritsar (from 15th March to 17th March, 2023) and Bhubaneswar (from 26th April 
to 29th April, 2023) were presented, discussed and finalized in the Meeting of the 
Education Ministers of the member countries on 22 June, 2023 in Pune. The EdWG 
has shared the best practices of the member countries in the realm of technology 
enabled learning, research, collaboration, future of work and Foundational Literary 
and Numeracy (FLN). The final report of this EdWG and those of other working & 
engagement groups of various tracks on various themes will be released in form 
of declaration later in the month of September in Leaders' Summit in New Delhi.

The report recommends making tech-enabled learning more “inclusive, equitable, 
relevant, effective, qualitative and collaborative at all levels”.  The focus on 
inclusive, qualitative and collaborative tech-enabled learning underscores the 
stance of G20 countries on technological integration in education in light of human 
rights and sustainable development goals. The G20 education ministerial meeting 
reaffirmed the need to develop a technology ecosystem, leveraging the potential 
of digital technologies in enabling inclusive, equitable, contextualized accessible 
quality education; encouraged the development of standardized frameworks 
for educational technology; capacity building of teachers and trainers to ensure 
availability of quality, effective and safe tech-enabled learning and assessment. 
The criticality of measures required towards overcoming the digital divide for all 
learners also emerged as one of the important themes and the key role of open 
educational resources, interoperability of digital resources and leveraging data 
analytics in hastening educational progress were reiterated. 

Group of Twenty Presidency, the Government of India has prioritized four key 
areas under the G20 Education Working Group (EdWG) which are a) FLN and 
lifelong learning, b) leveraging digital resources and technologies for accelerating 
educational progress, c) the impact of future of work on education systems, and 
d) greater synchronicity and collaboration between higher education, research 
and development and societies within and across boundaries. In case of digital 
technology, EdWG has highlighted the contextuality of the digital transformation of 
education across the member countries as each G20 member is at a different stage 
in its journey of the development of sustainable, inclusive and equitable access to 
tech-enabled learning. The tech-enabled learning in different countries has taken 
a different route but there have been some commonalities in the initiatives by the 
G20 actors. The member countries fair differently as the Republic of China has 
reached 100% internet access for all types of schools at all levels, while Argentina 
is focusing on equitable distribution of technological materials under its Conectar 
Igualdad policy and Italy is working on National Plan for Digital Schools to help 
digitalize their learning process and methodologies.

The three major areas of intervention across the countries have been the 
development of digital platforms, ensuring infrastructure and equitable access to 
it, and eContent creation. At the level of infrastructure some countries are focusing 
on the level of material infrastructure like equipment and others are focusing on 
providing better connectivity. Digital platforms are being used not only for school 
education but also for higher education and VET and hence serving a plethora 



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of educational and learning needs. Quality eContent creation is the natural next 
step with the focus being on the digitization of learning material. Therefore, 
G20 countries are concentrating on creating econtent, for instance, UAE created 
bilingual content, and Turkey and India created content for CWSN.

The year 2023 has been a momentous year for India’s diplomacy. India is presiding 
over the G20 forum, a forum where countries meet, debate and discuss the 
common concerns of sustainable development. When the Asian Financial Crisis of 
1997-99 struck, the finance ministers of the Group of Seven (G7) and the leaders 
of Group of 8 created a new body-G20 (Kirton, 2013, p.ix). Initially, it was a forum 
for Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors of the 19 countries and the 
European Union to focus on global economics and financial issues and in 2008, 
it was elevated to the level of leaders’ summit. G20 represents 85% of the global 
GDP and about two-thirds of the world population. It discusses issues ranging from 
economics to those of socio-politics including education. This year’s presidency lies 
with India with the logo of “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” (One Earth - One Family - 
One Future). The three-member management group consists of the past, present 
and future chair/precedency together referred to as Troika. The preparations for 
the G20 Summit are conducted through the established Sherpa Track and Financial 
Track which are responsible to prepare and follow up on issues and resolutions 
adopted at the Summits. Financial Track, led by Finance Ministers and Central Bank 
Governors, focuses on the economic and financial issues of the member countries 
while Sherpa track focuses on socio-political issues like education, agriculture 
etc. Sherpa represents the leader of the country. Apart from the two tracks, 
Engagement Groups also form part of the structure of the G20, which consists of 
participants from non-government entities like businesses, labour, youth, women 
and researchers of the member countries who can make policy recommendations 
to G20 leaders. Over the years, different Presidencies have led to the constitution 
of different Engagement Groups like Supreme Audit Institutions 20 (SAI20) was 
introduced under the Indonesian Presidency and India under its Presidency has 
created the Startup20 engagement group. A lot needs to be done in incorporating 
extended technologies (AR, VR and MR) and AI in creating digital learning resources. 
Multilateral cooperation is the key to the success of these initiatives.

The July 2023 issue has twenty two manuscripts in total. There are nineteen research 
articles, one review article, one communication article, and one book review. These 
articles deal with mobile augmented reality, inclusive enrollment policy, ICT and 
disintegrating teaching-learning process, massive open online courses, open 
educational resources, web-enabled student support services (WESSS) in open and 
distance learning (ODL) system, and artificial intelligence. I would like to thank all 
the authors and reviewers for contributing to taking out the 2nd issue of the 5th 
volume of the Indian Journal of Educational Technology.

(ABHAY KUMAR)
Editor