From Durham to Dubai: How senior education leader Baz Nijjar brought the first esports qualification to the Middle East

Baz Nijjar has more than a decade of experience in the education space, having moved from teaching in Durham to Dubai in 2015 to work with GEMS Education and big tech companies like Siemens, IBM, Microsoft on giving digital industry experience to students.

As Principal Advisor of Education Technology at GEMS, and the first to bring the Esports BTEC to the Middle East, Baz’s achievement was not without its challenges, with key school stakeholders needing to be convinced of the value of esports. In this interview piece for British Esports, Dominic Sacco asks Baz how he did it.

Today, gaming is on an upwards trajectory in the Middle East. Multi-million-dollar esports tournaments like Gamers8, Gamers Without Borders, and others take place there, and two of esports’ biggest tournament operators – ESL and FACEIT – were acquired in early 2022 by Savvy Games Group (SGG), a holding company owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

But prior to these major recent developments, hard work was being made at the grassroots level, behind the scenes in the education space. And just over two years ago, the first education institution in the whole of the Middle East brought the Esports BTEC qualification – first launched by British Esports and Pearson in the UK in 2020 – to the region. 

Baz Nijjar is the man responsible for the move. But how did it happen, and what’s next for esports in the Middle East? 

Before we answer this, let’s go back a decade, when the computing curriculum changed how teachers and students saw IT.

From Durham to Dubai: A background in teaching and leadership

With a computer science degree, plus a Masters in management, Baz Nijjar’s background in coding and programming – and love of gaming – also saw him develop games on a smaller scale.

He then turned his attention to teaching in 2011. Originally from Middlesbrough and residing in the Stockton-on-Tees area, Baz became a secondary school and sixth form teacher at Durham Sixth Form Centre. 

“Computer science was brought into schools at around the same time, and there was a huge shortage of computer science teachers,” Baz explains. “So I tried to utilise gaming to encourage and bring in something to engage the disadvantaged youth. Back then there was no real [mainstream] esports, so things happened more in the background, using Xboxes, PlayStations and PCs and running clubs to engage with students.”

Baz’s endeavours in the space led him to a leadership role at a different school in Stockton, and he also worked as an associate officer for the Durham local education authority. He was selected as a leader to support the development of computer science in Durham county. 

“My gaming and esports background didn’t really travel with me into this role, as there was no real push for it,” Baz says. “Things like Minecraft weren’t utilised that much in education, compared to how it is now. 

“But then I moved to Dubai in 2015, and things started to change.”

Baz worked as an innovation leader and computer science teacher at a top-rated school: Jumeirah College. This is part of the GEMS network of schools, the largest K-12 private education provider. After three years, he became head of the center of excellence of digital industries and the assistant principal. 

“That’s when I started exploring and experimenting in 2018 and 2019 in a new school in the GEMS network. It was the first time a centre of excellence had been opened in the region, and our centre was focused on digital industries and industry links,” Baz states.

“The idea was: can you link and bring in key skills from the industry level down to the school level, and give students experience of industry, whilst they’re still learning at school?

“We did this in a number of different ways. We introduced the first internship programme in the region – that was a starting point of breaking the barriers of traditional education, working with the government, the local authority, and KHDA (Dubai’s equivalent of Ofsted). 

“We launched an internship programme with Siemens where sixth form students would spend one day of their timetable per week learning industry skills. It could be presentations, it could be about the ecosystem of a business… It was all centred around sustainability because that’s Siemens’ focus area and it was all about showcasing that students could balance industry education with traditional learning. We did a local version of an internship programme with Emirati students – local students of affluent families. 

“And then we also did digital qualifications, we brought in things like the IBM Digital Nation qualification, the Microsoft Imagine Academy qualification, and these are usually for students who really want to go into the IT sector. At the time you probably wouldn’t take these qualifications until you left university or wanted a change of career. But what the likes of edX and Coursera and other organisations wanted to do was for anybody to be able to access content. 

“So we brought that content directly to the students, so if they want to learn a particular skill, they can start doing those while they’re still at school or college. Then we helped develop some of these programmes and modules by bringing them down to students for them to access them at an earlier age. So I’d done industry work and brought organisations to school level, whether it’s your IBMs or Microsofts and so on.”

“How do we get to develop the personal skills of students through gaming? How do we link it to their communication skills, collaboration skills, problem solving and analytical skills? What type of activities can we do around these games, rather than just playing? What games would add most value? We asked this, then we looked at how we could bring wellness and inclusivity in – all of the things that exist now.”

The Middle East’s esports and education push

Baz began to look at linking what students did in their spare time back with their personal development and academic skills. And that’s where his work brought him back to esports and gaming.

“I noticed British Esports doing work in the space and reached out to Tom [Dore, now global head of international relations at British Esports] in the very early stages of the esports BTEC,” Baz says. 

“We told Tom we wanted to do esports overseas – and that we had tried a few things already but people weren’t ready for it, because the case studies weren’t there then. So British Esports did some great work, and one of the reasons I brought esports here to Dubai was because of this work. But it was a slow process for me, because behind the scenes, I was having to do the work here that British Esports was doing in the UK: build the knowledge base, build the awareness, get those early adopters on board to showcase the outcomes.”

It wasn’t an easy task – Baz had to engage with, educate, and inspire decision makers to take a chance on esports education.

“I managed to convince the leadership of the school at the time to become the first school in the whole of the Middle East to launch the esports BTEC,” Baz explains.

“The challenge was BTECs aren’t actually recognised in this region, but a lot of people do them because it’s an 80-85% expac community, and obviously a lot of students go back to the UK. 

“Esports was a brand new subject for schools here, and I had to convince leadership that BTEC was a route that we wanted to follow. So we managed to do that and find a teacher that had the skills required. 

“We also launched the first ever creative media games design course at the same time, with a teacher trained in Unreal Engine, so we had two pathways – in game design and esports. That’s a level 3 course, so the first students will graduate from that this year. Even before the BTEC, we saw synergy with British Esports around gaming for good, and to add value to gaming. 

“We used the time in the first year to work around the modules and develop the content, because even resources weren’t really available from Pearson at the time, and see what impact it was having.”

Then Baz saw an opportunity to run short esports competitions, which, at the time, Michael [a teacher at the school] had led on, and as senior leader Baz was overseeing, supporting, and pushing this. 

“I asked how we could scale this,” Baz continues. “I didn’t want to jump on the bandwagon of tournaments – I could have done that years ago. But there were no competitions in the UAE (United Arab Emirates) back then, it wasn’t at the scale of where esports is in Saudi right now, for example.

“Within that year of us working behind the scenes, we supported a CSGO tournament that popped up, and that’s where the Global Esports Federation had come along to launch something. For me, I was trying to look for the integrity and added value of having esports. 

“While everyone else was making noise, we made quiet steps, we launched mini-tournaments and leagues, and looked at additional development skills you get from using esports as a gateway. And that’s what we call it – ‘gaming is the gateway to the youth’ and ‘gaming for good’. 

So behind the scenes, Baz and his team did a lot of experimental work – they took students out of class and put them in an esports and gaming environment, tried different types of games from Rocket League to FIFA, Valorant, and Minecraft. They tracked what the students were achieving in the build up to the mini-tournaments, they looked at their roles and how they solved particular problems. 

“We looked at that as a kind of a baseline, looking at the impact it could have from an academic point of view as well as a personal development point of view. This was all going on in the background,” Baz says. 

“There are so many things popping up in esports now, it’s becoming white noise, and I don’t want our work to get lost within that. We worked hard behind the scenes and weren’t looking at it from a commercial competition element, it’s about not losing track of our values, like personal development skills and holistic development.

“Given we have found the right people and done all of this work, now’s the time to launch competitions and tournaments with partners (around the UAE and elsewhere). We’ll link with other networks associated with gaming and esports. We’ll always ensure our foundations and beliefs can translate through these tournaments. 

“So if a student is in a tournament, they’ll also have to complete activities and skills about mindfulness, wellbeing, and all the areas we consider part of professional esports. That will get the buy-in from the parents that we’re not just pushing gaming. We can have British Esports supporting our tournaments too. 

“British Esports laid the groundwork in this space that other organisations are able to tap into now. So I knew there was an end goal, an outcome I could utilise that would add value.”

The future of esports 

The GEMS network has more than 40 schools in the UAE and Qatar, as well as linked schools in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and schools globally as well (which may not be GEMS branded but they will have an association with them). The GEMS network aims to focus on the whole esports ecosystem, but what does the future hold for this esports and education space in the Middle East, as well as the wider esports industry? 

Baz answers: “I think in the longer term, esports will be bigger than ever, I think the top end will get stronger moving forwards. But right now there will be a rollercoaster ride [given the wider economic climate and market correction going on in esports].

“From an education perspective, I think there will be more school teams playing against other school teams – that’s an area that will exponentially grow in the next 12 to 18 months. While that’s happening, maybe other esports teams that have been commercially valued at x, y, and z, will maybe struggle to get in the sponsors if they’re not winning tournaments. 

“But if sponsors see the future of esports and where it’s going, then perhaps they should be investing in the grassroots and finding the next tier, the next talent for the next generation. Those who start now will be the ones that go into top tier teams. I think you’ll see the market stronger than ever and I think more sponsors will get involved in the long-term, as more eyes will be on gaming and esports.

“Right now, the numbers are all over the place – this game gets x number of viewers, this team has y number of fans. It’s fragmented and publishers have the ownership. But I think the school and college space will grow further, the market will grow bigger. It always starts with schools, then as more academies come through, we may have the basketball route where students transfer between teams. The grassroots level needs to be recognised – and the money will follow in the top end.”

GEMS has already talked with a few football clubs in the UK who are running the BTEC behind the scenes or have an esports team, to play against some of GEMS players. So Baz hopes to have international matches in the future too, like arranging a UK school to play against a UAE school in esports, for example.

Baz ends with a final message around inclusivity, diversity, and potential: “Esports and gaming can bring people together, regardless of who they are, because it’s based on your character and skill, and this is key to the global potential of gaming.”

Follow Baz Nijjar on LinkedIn here and visit the GEMS Education website for more info here