👀 Education Trends to Watch in 2026

Hello 👋

2025 has come to a close, and education systems are starting 2026, reflecting upon a year defined by steady experimentation and growing maturity. Leaders across K–12, higher education, and workforce learning continue to test new models, especially with AI, while becoming more disciplined about what actually improves teaching, learning, persistence, and outcomes. The result is not a pivot away from innovation, but a clearer signal about what’s sticking, what’s scaling, and where priorities are sharpening heading into 2026.

🤖 AI gets practical. 2025 demands for AI moved toward workflow-first use cases with clearer signals of value across teaching support, productivity, and student services.

🧠 Engagement and well-being matter more. As automation expands, systems refocused on motivation, connection, and persistence across K–12, higher education, and workforce learning.

🧱 Digital infrastructure becomes table stakes. Steady progress on data layers, identity, interoperability, and cloud partnerships strengthened system coherence beneath the surface.

🧩 Skills are in demand. Shifting to skills-based education remains a work in progress, with skills visibility, microcredentials, and labor market alignment shaping policy, curriculum conversations, and workforce training.

📊 Outcomes are harder—and more important—to prove. Expectations for evidence rose, even as definitions of impact continue to vary widely by region and context.

👉 Read more here!

📣 Global Skills Week

Global Skills Week 2026 convenes the world’s leading skills-focused voices from industry, post-secondary institutions and business schools, alongside senior policy-makers and economic development and technology leaders. The week examines how education providers and employers are responding to shifting workforce demands and where critical capability gaps persist.

Interested in joining Global Skills Week 2026 as a strategic partner or sponsor? Contact bethany.hogan@qs.com

⭐ AI & Digital Innovation Spotlight

֎ Kazakhstan plans to implement AI across its education system starting in the 2026–27 school year by modernising the national education database and launching the Qazaq Digital Mektebi project, which will introduce AI‑based tutors in schools.

💡 Amazon has expanded its US AI education initiative and is partnering with PlayLab to support 18 educational partners across seven regions, aiming to reach nearly 500,000 students by providing custom AI tools and training for both teachers and learners. 

✨ Chonnam National University announced an AI campus transformation project to integrate eight Gen AI platforms across teaching, research, and administration, offering free access campus‑wide and expanding AI training.

🤝 Policy & Partnerships

🔧 JIADE partnered with South Korea’s Chinalink Education Group to jointly develop vocational education and AI-powered learning solutions and to expand these international education services across China, South Korea, and other markets.

🎓 upGrad and Sri Siddhartha Academy of Higher Education (SSAHE) agreed to embed an industry-aligned curriculum in SSAHE’s engineering programs, providing AI-driven personalised learning and industry-linked opportunities in fields such as AI, ML, and robotics.

💸 The University of Toronto has established a new Hinton Chair in Artificial Intelligence with $10M in funding from Google matched by $10m from the university,  to recruit and retain a leading AI researcher and support foundational AI research.

💪 Power Moves & Funding

🧑‍💻CarDekho Group, India's leading digital automotive platform, invested $10M in the edtech platform CollegeDekho to support its expansion and scaling of operations.  

💻Teal, a job search and career development platform, announced that it has acquired Ramped Careers, expanding its AI-powered job search capabilities into automated application 

💡Lumi Services AS will acquire Edrupt Holding AS, a Norwegian AI digital learning firm, strengthening Lumi's offering within artificial intelligence and data analytics.