Recipient of 9th Golden Excellence Awards 2026 for Education Leadership By: Shaneer Siddiqui
1. Tell us about yourself, your business journey and your contribution to the UAE.
I was a schoolteacher before I was a founder. In 2013 I opened a single learning center in Sharjah to help students struggling with the transition between curricula, as so many families here move between school systems. Horizon Learning Academies now operates across seven emirates, supporting more than twelve thousand students a year. My contribution has been building a bridge for children whose education keeps crossing borders, so that mobility doesn’t cost them their future.
2. What does receiving the 9th Golden Excellence Award for Education Leadership mean to you?
It’s an honor shared with every tutor and counselor who has stayed late for a student who needed one more explanation. Being recognized under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Nahyan Mabarak Al Nahayan matters deeply, because education is where tolerance is either taught or lost — classrooms are where children first learn to coexist with people unlike themselves.
3. How do you view the role of the Ministry of Tolerance and Coexistence in shaping the UAE’s society?
Our classrooms often have a dozen nationalities in a single room, and that is treated as completely normal here — which is remarkable if you compare it to most of the world. The Ministry’s work ensures this isn’t left to chance. It builds tolerance into curricula and community programs so that it’s taught deliberately, not just absorbed by accident.
4. What opportunities do you see emerging in your industry over the next few years?
Personalized, AI-supported learning paths will let us finally address the gap between fast and slow learners in the same classroom rather than teaching to the middle. There’s also growing demand for skills-based learning — coding, financial literacy, entrepreneurship — alongside traditional academics.
5. What are your company’s key plans and growth priorities for the future?
We’re building a hybrid learning platform that blends in-person tutoring with AI-driven practice tools, and expanding our scholarship program for underserved families. Our long-term goal is for no child in the UAE to fall behind simply because their family relocated mid-year.
“A country this mobile needs an education system that moves with its children, not one that punishes them for moving.” — Meera Balachandran
