UAE makes AI compulsory, from kindergarten
From the 2025–2026 school year the UAE teaches AI as a compulsory subject in state schools from kindergarten to grade 12. No exams, no extra hours, folded into the existing timetable.
While many places are still arguing about whether children should be allowed to use AI at all, the UAE has taken a very different road.
From the 2025–2026 school year, AI became a compulsory subject in state schools, running from kindergarten all the way to grade 12, across seven areas: data and algorithms, software applications, ethical awareness in AI, real-world AI applications, innovation and project design, AI policy, and civic participation.
What caught my attention most: there are no exams, no extra hours. It is folded into the existing timetable and taught at a level that fits each age.
I read it and kept thinking. It turns out the important question is not “should we let the child use AI”, but “how do we teach the child to understand AI properly”.
A five-year-old does not need to know how to program. But knowing to pause and ask “did a person make this, or AI?”, and knowing that AI can be wrong too, is already a solid foundation.
At CoreU we believe AI is a skill for a very near future. A child accompanied the right way will not fear the technology, but grow up able to command it.
And in your home, are you teaching your child to avoid AI, or to understand it?