Gulf states have built one of the world's largest private education markets, yet the benchmarks that define success inside it are written elsewhere. A June 2026 policy brief from Dubai's Fiker Institute argues that the arrangement carries consequences well beyond the classroom, shaping how the region is perceived abroad and whether its graduates can think within their own intellectual tradition. Its author, Abdulla N. Khoory, an IEmirati investor and entrepreneur, treats curriculum as an instrument of soft power and poses one question: will the Gulf remain a consumer of imported education, or will it design a model rooted in its own language, culture, and civilizational history?
"What we choose to measure in our classrooms is a declaration of what we value as a society," Khoory writes. "Reassessing those metrics is the first and most essential act of educational sovereignty."
