In partnership with the YouTube platform, UNESCO in Brazil launched today during the event "YouTube Conexões: A dialogue on digital education", the reformulation of the YouTube channel Edu. The channel aims to help students in the final years of secondary education and upper secondary education in different areas of knowledge to complement and reinforce their studies with educational content aligned with the National Common Curricular Base (BNCC) free of charge. In this new version of YouTube Edu, there is also content related to contemporary cross-cutting themes of the BNCC, and the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, among other topics relevant to education.
UNESCO selected the contents on this channel and carried out a complete update of the videos, bringing more diversity of gender, colour/race and regional representation. Throughout this reformulation process, specialists from education and technology were hired to determine and evaluate the selection criteria for this content, considering the audiovisual and pedagogical quality of the videos. In addition, the platform made three other product announcements during the event: Courses, Player For Education and Quizzes. The news is part of one of the platform's objectives concerning education, to provide content that contributes to expanding people's opportunities, breaking down barriers and focusing on high-impact, quality learning.
YouTube has been one of the most popular and accessible digital education resources since its launch in 2005. Every day, Brazilians look to this platform for information and educational resources and find valuable content that can contribute to learning. According to YouTube's Economic Impact Report, released in 2022, 99% of users report using the platform to gather information and knowledge, and 75% who searched for sustainability content on YouTube say they found helpful information.
In addition, according to a survey carried out by UNESCO with students and teachers from public and private schools, entitled "Uses, knowledge, perceptions and expectations of students and teachers of basic education about educational resources in video format", 91% of the responding teachers used videos of YouTube in their classes and 82% of the responding students stated that they noticed learning gains when studying through the platform.
When appropriately used, digital technologies can and should support more inclusive education, expand access to information and knowledge, enrich educational processes and improve learning outcomes. Therefore, within the scope of the technical cooperation between UNESCO and YouTube, the Organization has added its expertise to a qualified curatorship process to reform the YouTube Edu channel following the National Common Curricular Base (BNCC). This partnership aims to contribute to an inclusive, equitable, quality education that promotes lifelong learning opportunities for all.
Expanding the democratization of access to education through the platform is what we seek every day here at YouTube. After all, it is through this that we support the reduction of inequalities. Being able to launch so many good tools and new products for this purpose is of extreme joy for us and we want to continue this work, allowing different social contexts to have access to quality educational materials for free
