Education, Digitalization and the Role of Rights: A critical reflection / Educación, digitalización y el papel de los derechos: una reflexión crítica.

This article investigates the complex relationship between digital transformation and education, focusing on the shift from early internet structures, to today’s AI-driven, permanently connected infosphere. It critically explores the evolution of digital education policies, particularly within the European Union, and highlights the tensions between technological opportunity and educational issues. While digital tools offer promising avenues for personalization and inclusion, they also amplify concerns over inequality, digital divides, and the erosion of human-centered pedagogical practices. The analysis underscores how AI, if unregulated, may reinforce biases and undermine rights, especially those of minors. Drawing on frameworks such as the EU Digital Education Action Plan and UNESCO’s recommendations, as well as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the article argues for a rights-based, ethically grounded, and human-centred digital education. Only through such an approach education will be able to fulfil its democratic role and ensure that technology supports, rather than substitutes, human development and agency.