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.

The Testbed aims to close the gap between how fast AI tools reach classrooms and how well teachers understand and are prepared to use them, through rigorous piloting rather than unvetted rollout.

At a policy dialogue in Doha on 19 May 2026, 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; participants included the Ministry's Lolwa Al-Nuaimi and a robotics teacher from Qatar Science and Technology Secondary School for Boys.

Globally, 60% of teachers said AI had helped them tailor instruction to diverse student needs, but in Qatar specifically only 30% of surveyed teachers demonstrated a strong understanding of how AI actually functions in an educational setting -- a readiness gap researchers linked to limited AI integration in Arabic-language platforms and misalignment with local curricula.

WISE and Ministry speakers 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.