WISE EdTech Testbed — Global Survey Finds Only 30% of Qatari Teachers Understand How AI Works

The World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE), part of Qatar Foundation, runs an EdTech Testbed programme with Qatar's Ministry of Education and Higher Education and Qatar Foundation schools, giving teachers structured cycles to trial AI tools in real classrooms before wider adoption.

At a policy dialogue in Doha on 19 May 2026 ("AI & Teacher Readiness in K–12 Education: Global Research Findings and Strategic Implications"), WISE presented survey results from roughly 3,000 teachers across the United States, India, the Philippines, Colombia, Ghana and Uganda, including about 550 teachers in Qatar. Globally, 60% of teachers said AI had helped them tailor instruction to diverse student needs. In Qatar specifically, only 30% of surveyed teachers demonstrated a strong understanding of how AI actually functions in an educational setting — a readiness gap the researchers linked to limited AI integration in Arabic-language platforms and misalignment with local curricula.

WISE Research and Policy director Selma Talha-Jebril said AI is "moving into classrooms faster than schools have had time to prepare for it — faster than policy," while Innovation Manager Shahd Dauleh said the Testbed exists because much AI technology reaches teachers without rigorous prior testing. The Ministry's Lolwa Al-Nuaimi and a robotics teacher from Qatar Science and Technology Secondary School for Boys took part in the dialogue, which identified continuous professional development, institutional support and culturally relevant, Arabic-aware AI tools as the priorities for closing the gap between AI adoption and AI understanding.

Read the full analysis: http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/article/19/05/2026/wise-policy-dialogue-explores-ai-readiness-in-classrooms-through-global-research