KHDA × DP World Foundation × MIT RAISE — Dubai's Multi-Year AI Literacy Programme for Private Schools

In February 2026, at the World Governments Summit, Dubai's Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) launched a multi-year AI literacy programme in partnership with the DP World Foundation and MIT's Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education (RAISE) initiative. The programme is designed to run until February 2030.

The core programme targets Grades 6-8 (Years 7-9) students, integrating short, practical AI modules into six subjects: Maths, Science, Computing, Art, English and Arabic. Students learn how AI systems function, how to critically evaluate AI-generated outputs, and how to use AI tools responsibly. A separate high-school enrichment strand runs a four-week online plus one-week in-person format for smaller cohorts of 40-100 students per session.

The rollout is phased: the first stage co-designs the curriculum with educators at selected schools, followed by classroom pilots and teacher training, ahead of a broader rollout across Dubai's private schools. Teachers receive classroom-ready resources, professional development and access to a KHDA-supervised portal of age-appropriate AI tools. The programme is projected to reach approximately 80,500 students and 3,600 teachers.

As of the programme's February 2026 launch, no learning-outcome results have been published; the announcement references only a planned 'formative evaluation of student learning and programme quality' for the enrichment strand, so measured impact remains to be demonstrated.

Read the full analysis: https://mediaoffice.ae/en/news/2026/february/04-02/dp-world-foundation