Paddy Jensen: "Education needs to be disrupted. Traditional classrooms still follow a blueprint from a hundred years ago"

Paddy Jansen, Chief Operating Officer at Globeducate, the European K-12 education group that has made significant investments in Cyprus’ private education sector, discusses the benefits for schools of being part of a large network, the advent of Generative AI in the classroom, and the importance of instilling a positive attitude in the next generation.

Paddy Jansen looks momentarily perturbed when I bring up a Japanese anime series in a conversation about the good, the bad and the ugly of Generative AI in schools. The COO of Globeducate waits patiently as I explain: in the series, a superpowered humanoid octopus generates personalised tests at Mach 40, tailoring each one to his students’ skills and competencies.

“Yes! Teachers should use it that way,” Jansen says, his initial scepticism giving way to enthusiasm. “That’s totally doable, because it’s a question of time. And this is the type of thinking that we encourage in the Group. You should share that anime with me.”

I clear my throat, regretting my next words. “Assassination Classroom.”

He laughs. “Oh, no! Never mind then!”

A textbook Globeducate move

In 2022, Globeducate, a private education Group with more than 65 schools in its network, acquired Pascal International Education, which operates three schools in Larnaca, Nicosia and Limassol. The move was textbook Globeducate: it targets Mediterranean Europe and the surrounding region – it is a shareholder in International Education Group (IEG), which operates four schools in Morocco and the Netherlands – catering to families seeking an international, English-language education.

A sharp rise in population and, crucially, spending power, are also key factors in Globeducate’s market analysis. By 2023, Cyprus’ population had ballooned by almost 15% over a decade, inflated by the thousands of Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians fleeing the war in Ukraine, as well as by the Government’s headquartering initiative, designed to lure foreign firms by easing the hiring of non-EU nationals. Naturally, the swell sent shockwaves through the school system.

“When you see a large influx of people or rapid changes in the economic situation, governments can’t keep up with providing high-quality education,” Jansen notes. The EU’s nearly 1% average cutback in public school spending between 2010-2021 has hardly helped. “Insufficient financial resources led to overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages, inadequate facilities and increased educational inequalities. These factors collectively hinder the ability to provide high-quality education,” he explains. All these, of course, have played into the hands of private education providers.

A very supportive government - "You don’t see that in many places”

In 2024, 23% of secondary school students and 15% of primary school children in Cyprus were in private education – among the highest rates in Europe. To encourage investment in schools, the Government has also offered incentives to developers, including relaxed compensation rates and increased building density allowances. “The Government are very supportive of private education,” Jansen says. “They view it as a plus, as an advantage to accelerate the development of the education sector. You don’t see that in many places.”

In this environment, by April 2025, Globeducate had snapped up two more schools: Nicosia-based Olympion and the International School of Paphos, with a combined capacity of nearly 1,500 students. Both schools come with all the bells and whistles: robotics labs, tennis courts, the works.

€55 million on real estate and renovations alone

On real estate and renovations alone, the Group has spent €55 million, with the lion’s share – €35 million – poured into replacing Pascal’s Limassol site with a big new campus. It’s worth noting that Globeducate is backed by the private equity firm Providence Equity Partners, which sold 50% to the French investment company Wendel in 2024 for €625 million. In truth, describing the new Pascal Limassol campus as merely ‘big’ is an understatement. Designed for 1,800 students (expandable to 2,000) aged 6-18, it will feature space labs, tech rooms, fab labs, STEAM spaces and sports facilities – the latter still under construction – and will open in September for all grades. “It will be one of our flagship campuses. Absolutely state-of-the-art facilities; it has everything,” Jansen says.

As for the vacated Limassol site, that’s getting a second life as a Pascal primary school, thanks to an unexpected player, trading platform Exness, one of Cyprus’ biggest private companies. With more than 1,000 employees in Limassol, Exness had a vested interest in expanding schooling options. The company will own the real estate, leasing it to Globeducate, which will run the school. “In the future, we’re looking to expand our collaboration with them as one of our real estate partners in Cyprus,” Jansen says, hinting at more to come.

A suite of international programmes

To what extent does Globeducate standardise its schools, as opposed to preserving their local identity?

“We keep in place what is working, because that’s why we invest in these schools and we enhance them to make it a better offering,” Jansen replies. Schools in the Globeducate network have access to a suite of international programmes, including partnerships with the World Wildlife Fund and Lego Education, student exchanges and programmes in other countries, sports and academic Olympiads, robotics and art competitions – even the Globeducate Model United Nations, a platform where kids come together and learn to debate. The Group’s 4,000 teachers and 2,000 staff also benefit from training initiatives. “We provide these development opportunities so that they can become better in their day-to-day job, be more efficient and learn from others’ best practices,” Jansen explains.

Global citizens who can shape the world

At the heart of these efforts is Globeducate’s mission to “prepare each student to become a global citizen who can shape the world.”

It’s a bold promise but Jansen argues that today’s world demands such boldness. The second half of that mission – shaping the world – carries weight. Status and wealth no longer dominate the value system of younger generations. Or rather, they are no longer enough. Today’s young people seek fulfilment and purpose, choose jobs that make them happy, boycott brands they find unethical and look for meaning in ways that previous generations didn’t. “We have adapted our classroom experience to the United Nations Sustainability Development goals and all the events we have are linked to one of those goals. In our schools in Cyprus, you’ll see it on the walls, in the discussions that are happening, and when kids come home from school, they’ll talk about it,” Jansen says.

But shaping a generation isn’t just about guiding them towards purpose – it’s also about preventing them from drifting into disillusionment. Anxiety and uncertainty are defining traits of today’s youth. A 2021 study led by the University of Bath found that just 28% of young Brits and 21% of young Americans have faith in their governments to solve the climate crisis. The rest are gripped by what psychologists call climate anxiety, a condition that breeds fear, anger, despair and even guilt.

And it doesn’t stop there. War, financial crises, pandemics: every catastrophe is amplified by algorithmic echo chambers – social media – reinforcing a sense of helplessness. In his book The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority, former CIA analyst Martin Gurri describes these echo chambers as “the daily me”, a personalised information diet where inconvenient truths and opposing viewpoints simply cease to exist. Small wonder, then, that nihilism has crept into the psyche of younger generations. The nihilist, let’s recall, rejects tradition, shuns established norms and questions whether anything really matters.

So, how do you stop a generation from giving in to nihilism?

“Look, these are very challenging times,” Jansen says. “My generation – I’m 50 years old – has been very lucky. There have been conflicts here and there and, of course, Cyprus has had its fair share but, generally speaking, we’ve been quite safe. Now, there’s a new reality and we really have to make sure that kids are equipped to deal with it.” This, he adds, isn’t just about curriculum but more about skills, competencies and attitude. Young people need to be prepared to approach the future with confidence – not fear it but shape it.

“They have to become global citizens with a voice. They have to realise that they can actually change things and that they’ll need to change things,” he says. Jansen speaks not just as an educator but also as a father of four. Words like values, ethics and resilience matter just as much in the classroom as at home. “It’s great if they get high grades in geography but I care much more about them having a positive outlook on life and resilience: you’ve been struck down; you stand up and try again.”

He believes that private education is better positioned to foster these qualities, as it has the resources and programmes to go beyond the classroom. “The role of the school is to really offer kids opportunities to develop, to taste many things, so they can develop a passion,” he says. Once they find what excites them, they can build the skills and competencies to shape their future. The results on this competence-focused education speak volumes: students at Globeducate schools consistently score above the average in IB, IGCSE, and A-Level examinations and most graduates go on to attend prestigious universities.

The hi!ai project

Pascal’s flagship role in Globeducate extends beyond its state-of-the-art facilities. It also drives innovation, leading the charge is the hi!ai project, now spanning 12 Globeducate schools. Spearheaded by Elpis Anastasiou, Head of Innovation and AI at Pascal, the project explores AI research, design and engineering. The aim is to bring historical figures to life through AI, culminating in a virtual AI studio where these AI “brains” interact.

A standout development has been AInstein Junior, an AI chatbot developed by Pascal students and powered by ChatGPT, designed to build skills in artificial intelligence, 3D printing and Python programming. Beyond that, students learn to apply AI to real-world challenges, like urban sustainability and smart city development by using sensor technologies, among others.

At the same time, Pascal’s Space Centre, which has also been replicated across the Group’s network, is outfitted with 3D printers, terrariums, robotics and VR, giving students opportunities to engage in interdisciplinary projects, from space gardening and AI-powered robots to weather balloon experiments. “These types of projects blend technology with creativity and that’s where you can create really cool things,” Jansen says.

Grappling with the darker side of AI

Teachers, however, have had to grapple with AI’s darker side, like the misuse of AI to manipulate children’s images. To address these concerns, the Group is actively training educators on AI risks and opportunities – the good, the bad and the ugly.

One area undergoing major transformation is assessment. With Generative AI capable of producing polished essays in seconds, traditional methods are being rethought. “At first, some teachers would say, ‘You didn’t write this yourself – bad grade, bad boy,’” Jansen jokes. So, instead of banning GenAI, the Group has shifted focus and how well an essay is written matters less than the sources used and how a thesis is proven or disproven. This opens the door to deeper discussion and a higher quality of learning, he argues. While major examination bodies – like the IB and A Levels – are struggling to manage AI’s impact, with their response being a return to pen and paper, for him the key question will remain on how AI can be used to enhance education for both students and teachers. ‘Education needs to be disrupted. Traditional classrooms still follow a blueprint from a hundred years ago,’ he says.

(Photo by TASPHO)

• This article was first published in the April issue of GOLD magazine. Click here to view it