UAE marks International Day of Education, ensuring right to education for all

   The United Arab Emirates continues to strengthen its leading global role in supporting education and spreading knowledge, driven by its firm belief that education is the cornerstone of sustainable development and a more stable, prosperous future. 

Tomorrow, the UAE will mark International Day of Education, observed annually on 24th January, reaffirming its commitment to supporting international efforts to ensure the right to education, particularly in regions facing challenging humanitarian conditions 

Through humanitarian initiatives and education projects implemented across several continents, the UAE has contributed to enabling hundreds of thousands of children and young people to access their right to education. As part of these efforts, the Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan Institute for Vocational Education was inaugurated in the Republic of Senegal. 

The institute has a capacity of approximately 1,000 students, enabling it to play an effective role in training and qualifying large numbers of young people with the practical and cognitive skills required to support economic and social development in Senegal. 

As part of its initiatives to support the education sector in Yemen, the UAE inaugurated in October last year the Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Educational Complexes in Al-Azariq and Jahaf Districts in Al-Dhale'a Governorate. In their first phase, each complex includes 24 classrooms covering basic and secondary education, alongside fully equipped computer halls, science laboratories, and modern administrative facilities. 

The Emirates Red Crescent also launched the “School Bag Project” in the governorates of Al Hudaydah and Taiz, which included the distribution of 26,000 school bags to 26,000 students. 

Education has been a cornerstone of the UAE's foreign aid. Since 2018, the nation has contributed US$200 million to the Global Partnership for Education to support educational programmes in developing countries until 2025. 

The UAE's impact on global education is evident in its establishment of schools and universities, as well as its generous scholarships and grants. Numerous Emirati humanitarian organisations have built thousands of schools worldwide and trained hundreds of thousands of teachers. 

Since its launch in 2020, more than 750,000 students have benefited from the Digital School, one of the initiatives under Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives (MBRGI), which has also trained more than 23,000 digital teachers. 

In November 2025, the Digital School launched a strategic partnership with the Federal Ministry of Youth Development (FMYD) in Federal Republic of Nigeria. 

The partnership aims to enhance the digital education ecosystem, empower Nigerian youth with advanced digital skills, strengthen their future readiness, and equip them for emerging opportunities aligned with sustainable development pathways and the fast-paced global digital transformation across various sectors. 

In October 2025, the Digital School, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education of the Kurdistan Regional Government, launched an initiative to train and build the capacities of 10,000 digital teachers. 

The programme aims to equip teachers in the region with modern digital teaching skills through an advanced training programme organised in partnership with Arizona State University, USA. 

At the local level, education represents a central pillar of the UAE’s comprehensive, forward-looking vision, under which Emirati Day for Education was designated on 28th February each year, marking the graduation of the first group of teachers from the United Arab Emirates University in 1982. 

Over the past year, the UAE education sector has witnessed a wide range of development measures, including curriculum updates, a focus on future technologies, and the enhancement of higher education and scholarship systems. 

The year 2025 was marked by the launch of initiatives focused on nurturing talent and promoting scientific research to lead economic, social, and environmental progress. 

WAM