AI tutors, the digital divide, and more. OECD’s 2025 report highlights key education trends. Here’s what Aussie educators need to know and prepare for.
Published in late January this year, the OECD Trends Shaping Education 2025 report is a forward-looking analysis of global megatrends influencing education systems, with a particular focus on the role of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI).
The report looks at how societal, economic, and technological changes are reshaping learning, teaching, and the skills needed for the future workforce.
As AI becomes increasingly embedded in education, teachers and policymakers face pressing questions: How can AI enhance learning rather than replace traditional teaching? How do we ensure AI is used ethically and equitably? The OECD’s latest report tackles these questions head-on, providing a roadmap for integrating AI in ways that benefit all students.
For teachers and educators, it provides insights into how AI can support and challenge traditional educational practices, highlighting both opportunities (such as personalised learning and efficiency gains) and risks (including bias, equity gaps, and ethical concerns).
For us here in Australia, where AI adoption in education is rapidly growing, the report serves as a critical resource for policymakers, school leaders, and those in industry aiming to ensure that AI enhances education in an inclusive, responsible, and future-focused way.
The report considers wide-ranging mega trends that are shaping the education sector across four areas, each of which explores several topics:
- Global conflict and cooperation (including Demographic shifts; Dynamics of global trade; and Energy security)
- Work and progress (including Gender perceptions, participation and rights; and Digital dynamics in life and work)
- Voices and storytelling (including Populism and polarisation; The digital stage; and Diverse voices on the world stage)
- Bodies and minds (including Disability and advances in medicine and technology; Mental health concerns; and Environmental health threats).
Two major themes are woven throughout the report and into every topic—advancements in technology, including AI, and considerations about environmental sustainability.
Our three main takeaways from the report that are particularly relevant for teachers and educators focused on AI’s impact on education are:
1. AI is Redefining the Role of Teachers
AI is transforming education by automating administrative and repetitive tasks, allowing teachers to focus more on student engagement, creativity, and critical thinking.
In Australia, schools are already trialling AI-powered grading systems, chatbots for student support, and lesson-planning tools that suggest resources based on curriculum requirements. These innovations can save teachers valuable time by reducing workloads and enabling more personalised learning experiences. However, over-reliance on AI risks diminishing teachers’ ability to innovate and build meaningful connections with students, something no technology can fully replace. These challenges are echoed in the House Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training’s report on the use of generative artificial intelligence in the Australian education system “Study Buddy or Influencer”, published in August last year. [Source]
The OECD report strongly emphasises that AI should augment, not replace, educators. AI-driven tutoring and assessment tools can enhance learning, however human connection, empathy, and pedagogical expertise remain irreplaceable elements of education.
At Day of AI Australia, we know that AI literacy is essential not just for students, but for teachers as well. Educators must understand AI’s capabilities, limitations, and ethical implications to ensure its use in the classroom and behind the scenes is responsible, safe, and aligned with best teaching practices.
2. AI Creates New Challenges Around Equity and Access
The report underscores concerns about AI-driven inequality in education. While AI can provide personalised learning, students from disadvantaged backgrounds may lack access to the necessary technology or digital literacy skills. The OECD stresses the importance of policies that ensure equitable AI implementation, preventing disparities in learning opportunities between well-resourced and underprivileged schools.
This is not just an issue in least developed nations. Here in Australia access to reliable internet and digital technologies remains a substantial barrier for many First Nations students, particularly those in remote communities. Even in our biggest capital city, Sydney, there is a stark divide: in Western Sydney, only 31% of students have access to digital devices for learning at home, whereas the rest of Sydney reports nearly 60% access, indicating a pronounced digital divide within urban areas. [Source]
Governments must invest in school-supplied digital tools, teacher training, and improved connectivity to ensure AI benefits all students, not just those in well-funded schools.
Day of AI Australia partners with Officeworks and Google Chromebooks to donate laptops to disadvantaged schools across the country. These devices not only enable the Day of AI program to be delivered in these schools, the laptops provide longer-term impact for classes and individual students.
3. The Need to Prepare Students for an AI-Powered Workforce
With AI transforming industries, the report highlights the urgent need to rethink education systems, ensuring students develop AI-relevant skills like critical thinking, ethical AI understanding, problem-solving, and adaptability, rather than just technical proficiency.
Preparing students for an AI-powered workforce isn’t just about technical skills. It’s about understanding AI will increasingly play a role in almost every profession.
Schools must teach students not only how to use AI but also how to think critically about it: analysing bias, ethical concerns, and its societal impact. Initiatives like AI-focused TAFE courses and industry partnerships are steps in the right direction
As AI reshapes education, teachers and school leaders must be proactive in navigating these changes. This means advocating for equitable AI access, building AI literacy, and rethinking traditional teaching methods to embrace new opportunities. If we integrate AI responsibly, we can enhance education rather than undermine it.
The OECD report provides a global perspective—but what does this mean for your own classroom? How can you prepare your students for a world where AI is an everyday tool? These are the questions every educator should be asking in 2025.
In 2025, the team at Day of AI Australia will be sharing more insights about what is happening with AI and education, both here and overseas. Keep an eye out on the blog for the latest and make sure you’re registered as a teacher or subscribed to our newsletter to stay in the know.
To access Day of AI Australia’s 2025 lessons, register today!
Sources
OECD (2025), Trends Shaping Education 2025, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/ee6587fd-en.
Australian Digital Inclusion Index (2023), First Nations, https://www.digitalinclusionindex.org.au/first-nations/
Western Sydney University (2024), New report reveals the extent of the digital divide between NSW school students, https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/newscentre/news_centre/more_news_stories/new_report_reveals_the_extent_
of_the_digital_divide_between_nsw_school_students
Parliament of Australia (2024), Study Buddy or Influencer, https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House/Employment_Education_and_Training/
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