The Sovereign Education Technology Manifesto

Education technology, which was created to assist learning, has fallen under the ill influence of exploitative business practices aimed at maximizing profits while disregarding freedom and privacy of those who are often the most vulnerable—teachers and students. The same practices that were normalized by Big Tech—selling user data, renting software instead of owning it, vendor lock-ins—are now successfully applied in education, taking advantage of lack of knowledge, limited choices, and resource constraints educators face to hold them hostage in walled gardens, garnished with big claims and privacy-washing.

We must prevent this from becoming the norm. Education technology must never be the instrument of exploitation, oppression, or control.

The Sovereign Education Technology Manifesto is a blueprint for a new generation of education technology—the kind that empowers educators and learners, protects their freedom and serves them above all else.

Software Freedom. Education software should be libre and open source. We encourage developers to use strong copyleft licenses when possible to protect the results of their labor from misaligned use.
Privacy. Users should have complete control of their data. Period. Storage and communications should be private and encrypted by default. Usage analytics are discouraged. If present, they should be anonymous and explicitly opt-in.
Accessibility. Education technology should be accessible to all learners and educators. It should be designed to accommodate a wide range of abilities, learning styles, and cultural contexts. It should be affordable and available in low-connectivity environments.
Autonomy. Education software should enable institutions to maintain control over their technology infrastructure. This means providing options for self-hosting and relying on open standards to ensure interoperability and data portability. We encourage incorporating local-first principles whenever possible and reasonable.
Resisting Tech Worship. We stand against the worship of technology in education, techno-solutionism, and the narrative that more technology is always better. We recognize that technology can enhance learning, but it is no substitute for empathetic, skilled educators and well-designed pedagogy.
Liberatory Principles. Education technology should support the principles of liberatory education. It should promote learner agency, critical thinking, and self-actualization. It should resist all forms of algorithmic bias, discrimination, and oppression. It should foster meaningful human connections and collective empowerment, not isolation and individualism.

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