The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) has partnered with the UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (UNESCO MGIEP) to develop next generation AI powered immersive learning tools for global classrooms. The agreement, signed in Chennai on 1 September 2026, will combine IIT Madras expertise in artificial intelligence and Extended Reality with UNESCO MGIEP work on Social and Emotional Learning. The tools will convert existing school curricula into personalised and gamified lessons that can work even in low bandwidth classrooms.
What Is UNESCO MGIEP?
UNESCO stands for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. It is a specialised agency of the United Nations with headquarters in Paris, France. Its Constitution was adopted in London on 16 November 1945 and came into force on 4 November 1946. It now has 194 member states, and India has been a member since 1946.
MGIEP stands for the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development. It is UNESCO Category 1 Research Institute, which means it is a fully integrated part of UNESCO with a global mandate. The decision to set up the institute was taken by the UNESCO General Conference in 2009 for the Asia Pacific region. It was formally launched in 2012 by then UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova and then President of India Pranab Mukherjee. It is the first and only UNESCO Category 1 institute in the Asia Pacific region and is headquartered at 35 Ferozshah Road, New Delhi. Its present Director is Prof. Obijiofor Aginam.
UNESCO MGIEP works on SDG 4.7, which calls for education that builds peaceful and sustainable societies. Its core method is Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), which means teaching skills such as empathy, kindness, self control and respect for diversity along with normal subjects. It also develops digital teaching methods and places youth leadership at the centre of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Its main online learning platform is Framerspace, an indigenously built co creation platform that offers game based courses on climate change, global citizenship, peace and emotional well being for school students, teachers and working professionals.
What Will the IIT Madras Partnership Develop?
The cooperation agreement was signed in the presence of Prof. Obijiofor Aginam, Director of UNESCO MGIEP, Prof. Manu Santhanam, Dean of Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research at IIT Madras, and Prof. M. Manivannan, Head of the Experiential Technology Innovation Centre (XTIC) at IIT Madras. XTIC is the innovation centre of IIT Madras for Extended Reality (XR), which is a common term for Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality, along with haptics or touch based technology. It is described as India first dedicated research and product innovation centre for such experiential technologies.
IIT Madras, located in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, was established in 1959 with technical and financial assistance from West Germany under the first Indo German agreement. It was declared an Institute of National Importance by Parliament in 1961 and is headed by Director V. Kamakoti. The institute brings strong research strength in artificial intelligence, game design and immersive systems to this partnership.
The central product of the partnership will be open source AI tools that can read an existing school curriculum and reshape it into engaging lessons. For example, a normal history or science chapter can be turned into an interactive story, a simulation or a game where the student must take decisions and see their results. The system will also create personalised learning pathways, which means each student can learn at a suitable pace based on performance and feedback.
What Is Immersive Learning and Social and Emotional Learning?
Immersive learning means learning by experience inside a simulated environment rather than by only reading or listening. A student wearing a low cost headset or using a mobile screen can enter a virtual flood affected village to learn disaster response or walk through a virtual human heart to learn biology. Social and Emotional Learning, often shortened to SEL, means building life skills such as self awareness, self management, social awareness, relationship building and responsible decision making. Peace education, which builds attitudes of non violence, respect for human rights and care for cultural diversity, is a close part of this idea.
The new tools will not add SEL as a separate subject. Instead, they will embed these skills into everyday lessons, activities and assessments. A mathematics group task can also teach teamwork and patience, while a language lesson can also teach empathy and listening. UNESCO MGIEP will ensure that the content follows UNESCO guidance on AI ethics and learner centred education, which places the safety, privacy and overall growth of the child above the technology itself.
Why Low Cost and Open Source Tools Matter for Schools
A major barrier in Indian and many developing country classrooms is that teachers want to teach values and life skills but do not have the time to prepare separate lessons for them. The proposed AI tools aim to reduce this burden. Teachers will be able to generate SEL based lesson plans, classroom activities and test questions from their existing textbooks with limited extra effort. They can also customise the output for local language, culture and classroom level.
The partners have also committed to making the models low cost and usable in low bandwidth environments. Low bandwidth means the tools will work even where internet speed is slow or connection drops often. This is important because many schools do not have high speed internet, costly headsets or advanced computer labs. By keeping the software open source, which means its basic code will be freely available for use and improvement, schools, start ups and state governments can adapt it without paying high licence fees. This approach directly addresses concerns around the digital divide, which is the gap between learners who have access to modern digital tools and those who do not.
| Feature of the Planned Tools | What It Means in Practice |
|---|---|
| Open source AI assistant | Free to use and adapt for lesson planning and assessment |
| Gamified and immersive format | Lessons become interactive stories, quizzes and simulations |
| Low cost and low bandwidth design | Usable in schools with basic mobiles and slow internet |
| Curriculum integration | No new subject needed, SEL is woven into existing chapters |
How the Partnership Links to Sustainable Development Goal 4.7
Sustainable development means meeting present needs without harming the ability of future generations to meet their needs. To guide this idea, the United Nations adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 as part of the 2030 Agenda, to be achieved by 2030. SDG 4 calls for inclusive and equitable quality education for all. Its Target 4.7 states that by 2030 all learners should gain the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development through education for sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, a culture of peace and non violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity.
This target has two main pillars. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) teaches how to protect the environment, use resources wisely and live sustainably. Global Citizenship Education (GCED) teaches how to act as a responsible member of both the local community and the wider world, with respect for human rights and diversity. Progress on this target is tracked by checking whether countries include these themes in national policies, school curricula, teacher training and student assessment. The IIT Madras and UNESCO MGIEP project is directly aligned with this target because it seeks to place peace, sustainability and citizenship inside daily teaching rather than keeping them as separate slogans.
Framerspace, Research and the Road Ahead
Beyond software development, the two institutions will carry out joint research in educational technology, pedagogy, artificial intelligence and learning sciences. Pedagogy means the method and practice of teaching, while learning sciences study how the human brain learns and remembers. The partnership will also support exchange of faculty and researchers and organise joint workshops, conferences and seminars. This will help teachers, researchers and young innovators share findings and improve the tools based on classroom feedback.
The experience of Framerspace will guide this scale up. Framerspace already offers courses such as SEL for Teachers, SEL for Schools, Digital Teacher and Global Citizenship, along with youth programmes such as the Youth Fellowship on Leadership for Peace and Sustainability. These courses are largely free and open online and have reached lakhs of teachers and learners. The new AI and immersive layer built with IIT Madras is expected to make such courses more interactive, more personal and easier to use in Indian languages and in other country contexts.
If successful, the model can be adapted across different education boards and countries because it does not demand a new syllabus. Schools can keep their existing books and use the AI layer to add activities, feedback and immersive practice on top. For India, the partnership also shows how public research institutes can lead responsible use of artificial intelligence in classrooms, with care for ethics, inclusion and teacher support.
Key Takeaways
- IIT Madras and UNESCO MGIEP signed an agreement on 1 September 2026 to develop AI based immersive learning technologies.
- UNESCO MGIEP stands for the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development, launched in 2012 in New Delhi as UNESCO first Category 1 institute in Asia Pacific.
- The project will build open source, low cost AI tools that turn existing curricula into gamified lessons with integrated Social and Emotional Learning (SEL).
- Technical work will be led by IIT Madras XTIC, the Experiential Technology Innovation Centre for Extended Reality, game design and immersive systems.
- The initiative is aligned with UN SDG Target 4.7, which requires education for sustainable development, human rights, peace and global citizenship by 2030.
- Framerspace is UNESCO MGIEP indigenously built online platform offering courses such as SEL for Teachers and Digital Teacher.
