Dubai’s Citizens School to Accept Tuition Payments in Ethereum and Bitcoin

One learning institution in Dubai, Citizens School, said that it wants to integrate blockchain technology into various aspects of its academic and administrative operations in the future. Based on local news outlet Arabian Business, Citizens School will accept tuition payments denominated in Ethereum (ETH) or Bitcoin (BTC).

These payments using digital assets are facilitated through an unnamed processing platform and are automatically changed into United Arab Emirates Dirhams (AED). According to the founder of Citizens School:

“We look forward to enhancing the role of young generations in achieving the UAE’s digital economy. As more people embrace the era of digitalization, today’s children will become the entrepreneurs and investors of tomorrow.”

In the meantime, the CEO of Citizens School, Hisham Hodroge, commented:

“Introducing the ability to pay tuition fees through cryptocurrencies goes beyond just providing another payment option. It is a means to drive further interest in the applications of blockchain — a technology that Citizens School intends to deploy, in time, across several aspects of its academic and administrative operations.”

The Citizens School is scheduled to open in September 2022. It is located in the center of Dubai and seems to be designed to operate as an international school. The management said that the school is available to students aged between 3 and 11.

On its official site, the school lists its tuition cost as 45,000 AED to 65,000 AED annually ($12,250 to $17,700). That is the total amount before school lunches, VAT, field trips, a mandatory iPad for learning, transport, and extracurricular activities.

The United Arab Emirates has lately become a digital asset proponent in the Middle East with a growing number of crypto-friendly regulations. Both FTX and Binance crypto exchanges have already received their operational licenses in Dubai.

In the meantime, regulators in Abu Dhabi are rolling out draft recommendations for the trading of nonfungible tokens (NFTs).