Interview Responses — Sunita Sharma, Founder and CEO

For schools and counsellors encountering Young Scholarz for the first time in this market, can you introduce the organisation?

Young Scholarz is an online education provider founded in Singapore in 2008, specialising in the IB, IGCSE and American Curriculum. Over 18 years we’ve built a global faculty of more than 100 teachers and examiners — including IB Examiners and IGCSE specialists — supporting more than 1,500 alumni, and 100% of Young Scholarz students have been admitted to their university of choice. 98% of our IGCSE students achieve As and A*s, and 95% of our IB students achieve 6s and 7s.

What can students and parents expect to learn about your organisation at your booth during the fair?

At the booth, students and parents can expect a real sense of the credibility and trust Young Scholarz has built over 18 years in Singapore, one of the world’s most consistently top-ranked education systems. That system is built on rigour, discipline and a relentless focus on outcomes, and those are the same qualities we bring to every student we teach.

What sets us apart from other tuition providers is that we’ve never tried to scale into a mass production model. Being founder-led means every teacher is personally, carefully selected, not simply hired to fill a roster. Families will also have the chance to meet members of our team in person at the booth, and see for themselves the genuine, holistic support we offer around everything a student needs, not just exam content.

We’ve always believed education should look beyond the next examination. Students need strong subject knowledge, but also the confidence, skills and guidance to connect that knowledge to their future university and career goals.

One of the highlights will be a live, interactive seminar, where I’ll personally explain how Young Scholarz can support students and introduce BOUNCE, our proprietary six-step teaching methodology (Brainstorming, Organising, Understanding, Nuancing, Consolidating and becoming Exam Ready), developed through more than 18 years of teaching, coaching and mentoring students

A key part of our philosophy is trust. When parents entrust us with their child’s education, we believe we have a responsibility to genuinely understand that child. It really does take a village to raise a child, and we see ourselves as part of that village alongside parents and schools. We also see the fair as a genuine opportunity to open new partnerships and collaborations with schools and counsellors here who share that same commitment.

What services will you be showcasing at the event?

For schools, university counsellors and education professionals, we’ll be showcasing how our expertise extends beyond individual tuition, through exam preparation workshops, tailored academic programmes, and other support designed around a school’s learners. We see ourselves as complementary to schools and counsellors, not competing with them, part of the same pipeline that gets a student from where they are today to the university that’s right for them. These are the specific ways we hope to build genuine partnerships and collaboration with schools and counsellors across the UAE.

For families, we offer personalised academic support delivered entirely online across IB, IGCSE and American Curriculum, with expertise in English, Mathematics, Sciences, Economics, Business, Psychology, Computer Science and the Arts — including subjects where good teaching expertise is genuinely hard to find, such as Global Politics and Film Studies. Being an online provider means we can match any student to the right specialist from our global faculty, regardless of location.

Everything we offer is premium and bespoke by design. We’re not a volume business. We deliberately keep our model founder-led and hands-on, because that’s what allows every student’s programme to be built around them specifically, rather than fitted into a standard package.

We know how stressful this stage of education has become. Students today are overwhelmed with options and expectations, and increasingly with the pressure of moving between schools, cities and curricula as families relocate. What we provide, above all, is the same stability that has earned families’ trust in Singapore for 18 years, a consistent, rigorous, experienced presence through all of that change. Grades 11 and 12 especially are the gateway to a student’s future, at a time when the job market ahead of them is more competitive than ever.

We’ll also be offering on-the-spot diagnostic assessments for students following IB and A Levels, giving families an opportunity to better understand where the student currently stands and where additional academic support may be helpful.

Why have you chosen to participate in the UAE Global Education Fair this year?

Dubai was a very deliberate choice. Singapore and the UAE share a natural affinity, both are nations built on ambition, progress and a growth mindset, societies that prize hard work, entrepreneurship and continual improvement, where families place real value on education as the foundation for opportunity. Both are also global hubs shaped by large, diverse expat populations, cities where a child might sit next to classmates from a dozen different countries, and where families are choosing an international education precisely because it travels with them wherever life takes them next.

What we bring from Singapore is the rigour, discipline and relentless focus on outcomes that its education system is known for, applied entirely within the IB, IGCSE and other international curricula we specialise in. I believe that same approach translates naturally to Emirati and expat families here, who are thinking about their children’s futures in much the same way Singaporean families do, and who are navigating many of the same international curricula already.

Singapore’s own expat population is also highly transient, with families frequently moving between countries and curricula. We’ve built particular expertise helping students navigate these transitions, including moving from Indian CBSE or local O Level systems into the IB, and that speaks directly to the UAE’s own large, mobile expat community facing the same shifts.

For us, Dubai isn’t simply another market. It’s a natural next step for a company whose credibility and trust were built in Singapore and now travel with us here, and this fair is where we hope to begin the partnerships and collaborations that will carry that forward.

What do you hope to achieve by engaging with students and counsellors at the fair?

We want to begin relationships, not transactions, the same kind of long-term trust that has defined Young Scholarz in Singapore for 18 years. With students and parents, we want to understand the challenges they’re facing and show how our expertise can complement what they’re already receiving at school. With school and university counsellors, we’re interested in genuine, ongoing professional partnerships, where we sit alongside schools as part of the same pipeline supporting a student’s journey.

We’re also interested in supporting the complete learning journey. Where a student needs additional opportunities or specialist support beyond our core academic offering, we can connect them with carefully selected partners and experts.

For any family who’d like to meet with me personally while I’m in Dubai, I’d genuinely love that. I’m happy to offer individual consultations and sit down with families directly, please do reach out. This isn’t just a business venture for us. It’s about bringing the same credibility and trust we’ve earned in Singapore to families here.

Are there any new partnerships or initiatives you will be highlighting alongside the participation?

Our participation is part of a broader initiative to build partnerships with international schools, university counsellors and education professionals in the UAE, grounded in the same trust and rigour that built our reputation in Singapore. We think of ourselves as one part of a student’s wider support pipeline: schools handle the core curriculum and pastoral care, counsellors guide the university pathway, and we provide the specialist academic depth and exam expertise that complements both.

We started as one person. Today, Young Scholarz has grown into a faculty of more than 100 teachers and examiners, bringing genuine depth, expertise and global experience into every student’s learning, including native language speakers and specialists in subjects where quality teaching is genuinely scarce. Even at this scale, we’ve stayed premium and bespoke rather than mass market: every teacher is carefully selected, not simply recruited to fill a gap, and we invest heavily in that selection process. We’re equally proud of the high teacher retention this creates, the same long-term relationships we extend to families, many of whom stay with us across siblings and years.

Tell us in short about your company.

Young Scholarz is an online education company founded in Singapore in 2008, specialising in the IB, IGCSE and American Curriculum. We started with a single student, and over 18 years, that grew into an established, founder-led organisation trusted by more than 1,500 alumni, trust earned largely through word of mouth, families referring other families, in one of the world’s most rigorous and highly regarded education systems.

My own path here wasn’t a straight line, and I think that’s exactly the point. I started out teaching Maths and Science, long before I ever imagined running an education company. Along the way, I trained as a biochemist, qualified as a chartered accountant with auditing experience across Europe, and worked as a playwright and filmmaker. Each of those paths taught me something different: analytical rigour, discipline, and how to tell a story that connects with people, and each one shaped how I teach and how I lead today.

I share that journey with students often, especially now, because I want them to see that paths are rarely straight, and that’s not something to fear. What I want every student who comes through Young Scholarz to learn isn’t just subject content, it’s confidence, resilience, and the ability to find the path that’s genuinely right for them, even when it doesn’t look like the one they expected. That growth mindset is something I try to model as much as teach.

Our teachers aren’t just instructors; we see them as mentors, and I still personally step in to oversee the whole programme for every student. That’s deliberate, it means parents can feel genuinely safe placing their children in our hands, knowing there’s real oversight behind every part of their child’s journey, not just a name on a website.

I head our English faculty personally, alongside a wider team that includes IB Examiners and IGCSE specialists. That team culture is itself built on collaboration and partnership, between subject specialists, examiners and mentors, all working together around each student rather than in isolation.

One of Young Scholarz’s earliest students illustrates this journey well. He joined Young Scholarz at age 12, having just moved from Mumbai and struggling to adjust to a new curriculum in a new country. With consistent academic support through his transition and beyond, he was accepted into Tufts University, one of many, many such journeys Young Scholarz has guided from a child’s most uncertain academic moment through to a university offer.

We’ve supported more than 1,500 alumni, and 100% of Young Scholarz students have been admitted to their university of choice, with 98% of our IGCSE students achieving As and A*s, and 95% of our IB students achieving 6s and 7s. Because we operate fully online, schools and counsellors we partner with gain access to a global faculty of examiners and teachers, not a single local hiring pool. As we bring that to Dubai, we want Emirati and expat families — and the schools guiding them — to see Young Scholarz as a natural, globally-staffed fit for the pipeline they already trust.