Bringing AI to the next generation in the UAE

The UAE is rolling out an artificial intelligence curriculum for the earliest years in state schools, as part of its ambition to become a regional hub for AI, Education Minister Sarah al-Amiri told the Financial Times.

“The trigger [for the AI curriculum] was how much we saw students impacted by social media, and how we did not adapt to that”, Amiri explains, noting the challenges of education systems to keep pace and adapt to emerging platforms like TikTok.

The former chair of the UAE’s space agency and Minister of State for Public Education and Future Technology, Amiri was appointed Education Minister as part of a wider shake-up of the schooling system. Amiri said that her team has been focusing on “improving learning outcomes” through transformational initiatives like this – and that a “future-facing curriculum” should be used to boost performance levels. 

AI programming was initially intended for high schoolers – but the rapid advancement of the technology prompted Amiri to include pupils at nursery schools. “We realised that in everyone’s daily life, including children as young as our years old, they are exposed to it in one way or another”, she said, citing devices such as Amazon’s Alexa.

Ethical use of AI will also be a component of the curriculum, which is capped at 20 hours per academic year. The children will also learn how to write prompts (directions given to a chatbot), and how to use AI for research purposes without plagiarising.