Trends in global education

Record demand for Inspired scholarship programmes

The Nsouli Scholars Programme, which was founded in 2024 by Nadim Nsouli, has attracted a record number of applications this year, with four Palestinian scholars selected through the programme's humanitarian access pathway.The programme provides fully funded places to exceptional young people who demonstrate outstanding academic ability, leadership potential and excellence in sport or the arts, alongside financial need. The strongest growth has come from Sub-Saharan Africa, where applications have increased by 574 per cent since the programme launched, rising from 128 applicants in the first year to 863 this year. The region now accounts for 60 per cent of all applications received. Applications from the Middle East and North Africa have also more than tripled over the same period.

The trend shows education is valued and aspirational

Nsouli said the figures underline the scale of global demand for educational opportunity among high-potential young people whose ambitions are too often limited by financial circumstance. The 2026 to 2027 cohort includes scholars from Indonesia, Peru, Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, India and Belgium, alongside four scholars from Palestine who have been selected through the programme's humanitarian access pathway.The scholars will attend Inspired schools across Africa, Europe and Asia, including Brookhouse Schools in Kenya, Knowledge Gate International School in Oman, St John's International School in Belgium, Reddford House in South Africa and King’s College Alicante in Spain.“The twelve scholars joining us in the next academic year have shown exceptional talent, determination and promise,” he says. “We are proud to welcome them into the Inspired community and look forward to supporting them as they pursue their ambitions and develop into the next generation of leaders, innovators and changemakers.”He said the programme forms part of Inspired Education's wider commitment to expanding access to education and opportunity. Today, more than 2,500 pupils benefit from scholarships and bursaries across Inspired Education schools worldwide.“The philosophy of our schools around the world has always been on three pillars, which are academic attainment, performing arts and sport,” he explains. “Each of these can help to build the confidence of each child and have them be comfortable with who they are as individuals, and whether they achieve it on the football field or in a math classroom or on the drama stage is less important. The scholarship programme is to identify children whose parents could never afford one of our schools, and to give them the opportunity to have a premium education and develop their natural talents.”One of the qualities that the programme looks for is students who identify signs of leadership potential.“Leadership is about inspiring others, having empathy, and having a willingness to develop and grow,” he says. “They also need to care about the work that they are doing. When you are in a leadership role, if you don't care, then you are never going to do a good job. That is a philosophy I try to instil in everyone who works or studies in an Inspired Education school.”As part of Inspired Education’s global exchange programme, all students can spend from three weeks to a year experiencing life in a different school and a different country, he says.“We have 95,000 students on six continents and they can choose a school with a similar curriculum to spend some time in. So far, 1,000 students have taken up this opportunity, including my own son who spent time in an Inspired School in Switzerland. I live in the Bahamas with my children, and it is a small island, and we have a lot of Bahamian students travelling to spend time in our schools in Madrid or Italy to learn about other cultures and make new friends as part of the global family of Inspired schools. So that's one of the huge benefits now of the size of the group is that we are able to offer that for students of different nationalities.”

The rise of AI, competition and the effect on graduate jobs

Despite the costs of higher education, Nsouli says the majority of parents in Inspired Education’s schools want their children to go to university. He believes that higher education is still worthwhile, but more questionable if it is not done in a respected institution.“It is a very competitive world and AI is taking a lot of graduate entry level jobs, especially in banking, legal, computer science and marketing” he says. “To succeed, you need luck and you need to work hard because it is not enough just to be smart. You also need to have empathy and emotional intelligence, and to have the resilience to rise to the challenges that you will come up against in life.”He believes that AI is going to have a profound impact on education in terms of personalised learning, which will enable students to understand areas where they are weak or parts of the curriculum where they need to concentrate more effort. For example, homework can be tailored to each student’s understanding and ability, so that they get a full analysis of how they might have improved the assignment.“The vast majority of our schools are non-selective, but we get great results academically because we can learn from the best performing schools in our group and share these global best practices across the group. We acquire and build schools that are already successful, and we implement global best practices to ensure that our schools and our students are always performing at the top level.”

Scholarship opportunities

He says the growth of the Nsouli Scholars Programme over the past three years demonstrates both the talent that exists across the world and the responsibility that Inspired Education has to help ensure that opportunity is not limited by financial circumstance."We have seen increasing numbers of applications from Africa and the Middle East, where ambitious young people are seeking opportunities to fulfil their potential and make a positive contribution to their communities,” he says. “The remarkable growth in applications reflects the aspirations of young people and families who recognise the transformative power of education.“We are taking very talented students onto our programme and giving them an opportunity to have an amazing education. They can then go back to the countries they come from and use those leadership skills to create something that is beneficial, whether it's leading a country or a company or starting a non-profit business or being a doctor or scientist in an underprivileged community or a country.”The scholarship programme is based on Nsouli’s own experience of coming from a country where opportunities were limited, and being able to thrive as a result of being educated elsewhere.“I grew up in a country at war (in Lebanon), and the reason I am where I am today is because my parents were able to provide me with a great opportunity in pursuing education in foreign countries,” he says. “Education enabled me to pursue my career and ultimately build Inspired Education that has 15,000 people employed around the world and educates 95,000 children globally. Without the opportunity to study outside Lebanon, I might not have had the chance to build this company and create the benefits for people who study and work at our schools. I hope the scholarship programme will help to change students’ lives because I have seen the value of educational opportunities in my own life.”To learn more about the Nsouli Scholars Programme, visit Nsouli Scholars.

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