The system, and the boards inside it
The Ministry of Education presented its 2025-2026 strategic plan on 11 September 2025. It
counts 520,271 students, 422,744 of them in public schools and 97,527 in private schools,
across 1,141 schools, 950 public and 191 private, with 131,969 teaching and administrative
staff. Ten new schools opened, seven in Al Mutlaa, one in Ishbiliya and two specialised,
staffed with 800 teachers and 183 administrators, and 687 principals and assistant
principals were appointed. Acting Undersecretary Eng. Mohammad Al-Khaldi and Assistant
Undersecretary for Educational Affairs Eng. Hamad Al-Hamad are named on it.
Inside that system a Kuwait City family can be sitting any of six routes: the Ministry of
Education national certificate, Shahadat Al-Thanawiya Al-Amma; CBSE; Cambridge and Pearson
Edexcel IGCSE and A Level; the United States high school diploma with AP; and the
International Baccalaureate. We teach across all of them, which matters here because the
exam months do not line up with each other.
The Indian and CBSE schools
This is the largest single demand pool in the country. Indians are Kuwait's largest
expatriate community at roughly 1.06 million people, about 20 per cent of the population
according to PACI figures for the end of June 2026, and at least 20 CBSE affiliated schools
operate in Kuwait. The Indian Community School Kuwait, established in 1959 and now running
four branches, entered 535 candidates for the 2025-26 CBSE Class XII exams, reported as the
largest batch in Kuwait, of whom 99.25 per cent scored above 70 per cent and 186 scored
above 90 per cent. The New Indian School, Carmel School founded in 1969, United Indian
School, Jabriya Indian School, Gulf Indian School, Integrated Indian School which opened in
April 2004, and Bhavans Kuwait sit alongside it.
British, American and IB schools
The British School of Kuwait expanded its Upper School in 2025 to more than 715 pupils, and
Kuwait English School and Kuwait National English School run the same curriculum. Among IB
World Schools teaching in English, the American International School Kuwait is authorised
for the Primary Years, Middle Years and Diploma Programmes, American Creativity Academy
runs the Diploma Programme, Kuwait Bilingual School runs the Primary and Middle Years
Programmes, and Reborn Kids Education Academy is also authorised. The American School of
Kuwait runs the United States diploma track.
What the Ministry has already put in the classroom
On 11 February 2025 the Ministry of Education announced that artificial intelligence had
been added to part two of the Grade 10 computer development textbook, announced by Mona
Salem Awad, General Technical Supervisor of Computers. The 2025-2026 strategic plan then
extended AI across the computer science curriculum for grades 10 and 11, alongside 88
revised textbooks and the Ma'a Hamad Chat AI tool for students, teachers and parents. A
textbook chapter can say what a neural network is. It cannot give a student the experience
of watching their own model be wrong and working out why.
Kuwait University and the degree route
Kuwait University launched its first specialised Data Science and Artificial Intelligence
programme, in the College of Life Sciences, from the 2025-2026 academic year. It was
announced by Dr Nawaf Al-Hajri, Acting Dean of the College of Life Sciences, framed around
big data and AI and aligned to New Kuwait 2035. It is genuinely new, so the first cohorts
started in 2025-26 and there is no long track record to lean on yet.
The admissions mechanics are worth reading before your child chooses subjects. Kuwait
University admits on an equivalent grade point average that combines the secondary school
percentage with an academic aptitude test result, used across most colleges. The College of
Science and the College of Law are the exceptions, where the high school GPA alone decides
eligibility. The published minimum high school GPA is 70 per cent for the Science track and
78 per cent for the Arts track, and the College of Engineering and Petroleum requires the
aptitude test. The university's Computer Engineering department was established in 1985, is
ABET accredited, and reports 16 laboratories and 44 faculty.
Elsewhere, the Gulf University for Science and Technology runs Computer Science and Computer
Engineering degrees whose stated coverage includes artificial intelligence, algorithms, data
structures and database management, and the American University of Kuwait offers a Bachelor
of Engineering in Computer Engineering with a dedicated artificial intelligence track. The
Australian University of Kuwait, Kuwait College of Science and Technology, Arab Open
University Kuwait, PAAET and American International University Kuwait complete the usual
application set.
So a student sitting the new AI unit in Grade 10 or 11 is roughly two years from an
admissions system that scores them on a secondary percentage plus an aptitude test, applying
to a degree that has no graduating cohorts behind it yet. What makes an application legible
in that situation is not a certificate. It is a project an admissions reader can open, run
and question.