IIT Madras and UNESCO Institute to Build AI Tools for Social-Emotional Learning in Classrooms

The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) has signed a cooperation agreement with the UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (UNESCO MGIEP) to develop artificial intelligence (AI) and immersive learning technologies for schools worldwide. The partnership combines UNESCO MGIEP's work in Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) — teaching skills such as self-awareness and responsible decision-making — with IIT Madras's expertise in AI, Extended Reality (XR) and game design.

The 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 IIT Madras's Experiential Technology Innovation Centre (XTIC). Aginam said UNESCO MGIEP will contribute expertise on SEL and on UNESCO's recommendations for AI ethics and learner-centred education, and that the resulting open-source AI is meant to help teachers embed SEL into lesson plans, teaching activities and assessments.

Aginam added that the AI models are intended to be low-cost and to work efficiently in low-bandwidth settings, so they do not require continuous internet access. Manivannan said the planned AI tools will analyze existing curricula and generate personalised, gamified learning pathways that embed SEL directly into academic content rather than teaching it as a separate subject, aiming to give students real-time emotional feedback as classrooms shift toward more experiential, participatory learning.

Beyond building the tools, the partnership will fund joint research in educational technology, pedagogy, AI and learning sciences, along with faculty and researcher exchanges, workshops, conferences and seminars. It is intended to support UN Sustainable Development Goal 4.7, which calls for education that promotes peaceful, inclusive and sustainable societies.