20-05-2025
How Dubai schools are teaching kids as young as 5 to think like CEOs, launch businesses
With some of their students becoming entrepreneurs at the age of 13, many schools are having to rethink their curriculum. Some focus on artificial intelligence and entrepreneurship to make sure the younger generation are prepared for the future while others teach their students financial literacy and other such life skills.
'We have a 13-year-old who has designed his own business and branded it,' said James Efford, elementary principal of Dubai schools, Al Khawaneej at Taleem Group. 'He has been horse riding from a very young age and has his own clothing brand. At our last school meeting, he handed out business cards, networking as he went. His use of AI is inspiring even the adults on campus.'
He said that to further equip such young achievers, the schools put in place several programmes. 'For our younger students, we have an initiative, whereby we invest Dh500 at the start of the year within each grade level,' he said.
'They take that money, spot a gap in the market, usually something they know that their parents will want to buy off them, and then we sell them. The kindergarten students were reading the Gingerbread Man story, so they baked gingerbread cookies and sold them for a massive profit. The process was exciting and a lot of fun and it teaches the children those skills that they need. They also get to learn what to do with that money.'
He was speaking at a panel discussion on the role of schools in nurturing innovators at the Future of Learning: Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship event. Held at the Intercontinental Dubai Festival City on Tuesday, the event brought together key policymakers, educators, startup leaders, and investors to discuss a future-ready ecosystem.
Innovations
One educator said that it required them to constantly challenge the status quo. 'The curriculum that we have to provide doesn't leave much room for movement or exploration but we do have to be creative,' said Baz Nijjar, Vice President of Education Technology and Digital Innovation at Gems Education.
He added that schools try to bring in industry professionals to vet student projects and 'give that feedback and confidence to the young learners' so that they can be confident in their skills. He said this gives students the confidence to be an entrepreneur or creator 'in a safe environment'.
'We have seen in a number of cases, when they leave university or school they become business owners with this experience,' he said.
Wissam Gach, Associate Professor of Chemical and Biological Sciences in the Department of Public Health at Candian University of Dubai said that they introduced capstone projects as a way of developing leadership and innovation.
'Capstone projects with good mentorship help students to innovate and foster their innovation and creativity, especially if they are working in interdisciplinary areas,' he said.
'So, we let them choose their topic, and a real problem that we have in our work. We then help them find collaboration in interdisciplinary areas. Now we can easily combine science, health, environment, art, and AI together. In addition to that, I think that our curriculum should be redesigned to introduce some leadership principles, ethics, policymaking, design thinking, in addition to embedding some entrepreneurship training that would help them in order to learn the new techniques that they needed."
