UAE Harvest 2025… development initiatives and comprehensive updates that reshape the future of education

During the year 2025, the education sector in the UAE witnessed a wide series of developmental steps that included modernizing curricula and focusing on future technologies, in addition to developing the higher education and scholarship system.

The year 2025 was marked by the launch of initiatives concerned with talent and stimulating scientific research, such as the “Zayed Foundation for Education”, which aims to support 100,000 young talents by 2035 and qualify them to lead global economic, social and environmental progress, and the introduction of artificial intelligence as a curriculum from kindergarten to the twelfth grade, making the UAE one of the first countries in the world to include artificial intelligence in school education curricula.

The Ministry of Education announced the modernization of educational paths for third-year students in government schools and private schools that apply the ministerial curriculum, so that the advanced path allows students to continue their studies in the specializations of engineering, medicine, pharmacy, and science, while the general path allows specialization in the humanities and literary sciences, business administration, law, arts, and social sciences.

The Ministry adopted a guide to mandatory regulations for teaching the Arabic language, Islamic education, and social concepts in kindergartens in private schools, including all approved educational curricula.

For its part, the Education, Human Development and Society Council adopted new standards for studying higher education students outside the country with the aim of raising their readiness for the labor market and organizing scholarships in a manner consistent with the aspirations of the country and its vital sectors.

The Council issued a decision to amend the admission age for kindergarten and first grade in public and private schools, with implementation starting from the 2026-2027 academic year, where the date of December 31 of the year of enrollment will be adopted as the official date for calculating the admission age for schools and kindergartens whose academic year begins in August or September, while continuing to apply the date of March 31 for schools and kindergartens whose academic year begins in April, according to their approved system, provided that these dates are implemented. Starting from the academic year 2026-2027 for new students in kindergarten and first grade.

In turn, the Department of Education and Knowledge in Abu Dhabi launched the “Preparation Program for Scholarship Students” to qualify 300 male and female students enrolled in scholarship programs in preparation for their academic trip outside the country.

The 2025-2026 academic year witnessed qualitative updates that included canceling the central exams at the end of the second semester for all educational levels and replacing them with the school summative assessment, so that the central exams were limited to the first and third semester.

The updates included implementing the second phase of the project-based learning system for all second-cycle students in public and private schools that follow the ministry’s curriculum, in addition to developing the national testing system, increasing the time for teaching the Arabic language in kindergartens, and allocating daily hours for first-cycle students to consolidate language skills.

In the educational context, the Mohammed bin Zayed Award for Best Teacher, in coordination with the Emirates College for Educational Development, launched the development program “Pioneers of Executive Educational Excellence” to empower a group of award-winning teachers and enhance their role in leading educational change in accordance with international best practices.

The year 2025 also witnessed the launch of the “Mohammed bin Rashid Government Scholarships” initiative, which includes a package of initiatives, and its first projects include scholarships for master’s programs in economic strategies, international policies, and artificial intelligence in the government sector, in cooperation with the most prominent international universities, namely the Emirates University for Artificial Intelligence (50 seats), the University of Oxford (25 seats), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (25 seats), New York University (40 seats), and Georgetown University (60 seats), with 100 students in economics and 100 in intelligence. Artificial.

Last October, the branch of Mohammed bin Zayed University for Human Sciences was opened in Zayed City in the Al Dhafra region as part of the university’s plans for local expansion, as it will offer specialized programs in Islamic and social studies and humanitarian work in a way that enhances the values ​​of citizenship, tolerance and coexistence.