The Council of Europe has adopted a new recommendation on AI literacy, aimed at its 46 member states. The goal is to better equip pupils, students, teachers, parents, employees and citizens to understand AI, use it responsibly, and recognise when the technology threatens human rights, democracy and the rule of law.
Experts consulted by the ministries during the drafting of the recommendation included Luuk Terbeek, strategic advisor on digital transformation in education at the VU Centre for Teaching & Learning. The final text offers a framework of 22 guiding principles across four themes: fundamental understanding of AI, human rights and human dignity, democracy and the rule of law, and social agency and critical thinking.
The recommendation aligns with existing VU policy on several points. Its premise that every teacher and student should be AI literate matches the recommendations of the VU-UvA Taskforce AI in Education. The VU Digitalisation Strategy 2026-2030 likewise approaches AI not primarily from what is technically possible, but from the question of how technology, which is never neutral, serves people and society, while warning that excessive AI use risks diminishing human skills.
Finally, the recommendation also connects to the broader mission set out in the VU Strategy 2026-2030, to educate students as responsible global citizens who contribute to a healthy and just world. Both the Council of Europe and the VU stress that AI is a sociotechnical phenomenon, in which not only the technology matters, but also the people, institutions and society around it.
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