‘Different and amazing’: Majd, entrepreneur and founder of ScholaScope, on Amala’s transformative educational model
Majd first heard about Amala, what was then Sky School, back in 2017. He joined the pioneering cohort of the Global Secondary Diploma in Amman, Jordan, in 2020, and became the first Amala alumnus to access university using his Diploma. This was, of course, a huge milestone for Amala, but an even bigger one for Majd.
Majd with Amala Co-Founder Mia (left), Jordan Programme Manager Lamis (far left), and Jordan Learning Lead Fatima (right) on graduation day, 2021
Accepted to University of Prince Edward Island to study Philosophy and Psychology after completing his secondary education through Amala, Majd relocated to Canada in 2022. He now works as an Education Project Coordinator for a health charity alongside managing the startup that he developed whilst at Amala, the award-winning ScholaScope.
In 2018, following his participation in Amala’s Peacebuilding Changemaker Course, Majd emailed Mia and Polly, Amala’s founders, about how education still wasn’t accessible for him as a refugee beyond informal courses. Some time passed, but then they replied with exciting news: they were working on a high school qualification for refugees and that they’d let him know when it started. “I thought: ‘Yes! Finally someone is focusing on refugees’ education”.
“The topics and style of Amala was different and amazing. Making sure that students learnt by asking for evidence of learning. It was just right for me. I was like, ‘yes, this is how education should be!”
Majd (centre) with his classmates on the pioneering cohort of the Global Secondary Diploma in 2020, and members of the Amala Jordan team
The pioneering cohort of the Amala Global Secondary Diploma (GSD) started in Amman in 2020, with Majd one of its first students. He thrived. He had worked on several entrepreneurial ideas before the start of the GSD, including pitching low cost website creation to supermarkets as a solution to Covid-19 lockdown restrictions. Because of the jobs he had done before starting the GSD, Majd found the learning on the programme highly relevant to his life. “When it started, I realised it was aligned with the lifestyle I was living. Amala courses were talking about leadership, and I could connect those courses to my real life. It was very refreshing for me.”
The GSD stood out to him as different from the kind of curriculum that one might experience in a mainstream school. There was no algebra to learn and forget, no grammar lessons. “We were taught what was important for us at the time”, says Majd. He adds that “refugee youth with no educational pathways often feel lost and useless, and Amala helped reignite the purpose of pursuing education”. Majd enthuses about the way that students gain credit for courses on the GSD, and the way that this solidifies the learning experience, rather than learning something for the sake of a test or an exam. “This is what’s fun about Amala. It’s me, creating a project that I’m really enjoying working on, something that I'm documenting, something that I will never forget”.
Through Amala’s innovative educational model, Majd observed a change not only in himself but also in his colleagues. “Amala’s education was super different. I knew people who didn't really have any bright opportunities in front of them. They were tired of doing regular jobs. And then with Amala, they accelerated their growth. They started reaching out in the entrepreneurship world. They took a lot of initiatives. This was super effective for us as a cohort. When someone sees one of their classmates taking initiative, they offer help, and plan on taking initiative too.”
We asked Majd about why Amala’s educational approach resonated with him, and why it’s different from other kinds of education that he has experienced - from his schooling in Syria, to his university studies in Canada. “The curriculum is fantastic”, said Majd. “Still to this moment I have huge arguments about ethical leadership and conflict escalation. I apply Amala’s curriculum throughout my life.” Majd also speaks enthusiastically about the creativity that students develop on the GSD, compared with traditional educational models: “I think Amala challenges you to be creative. When for the task they say “go and reflect on something”, this isn’t school work. Normal schools don’t say “go and reflect on the class discussion, and give us your thoughts. Your thoughts don’t matter in school, because it might not be relevant enough to the teacher.” Majd likens traditional school work to a “Holy Bible - it’s like everyone should conform to this. At school I used to disagree with a lot of things that were in the book. Amala gives students space to become creative and develop their own agency and have their own perspectives, whilst meeting the pillars of each of the programmes. That’s why I love it.”
“At Amala you don’t enforce questions from someone else’s perspective or someone else’s mindset on students, telling them what’s right and wrong. It’s about setting a standard, asking students if they understand it, and then asking them to do something from their own perspective that resonates with them.”
When Majd finished the Global Secondary Diploma, he felt happy: the Diploma didn’t cost me anything, and at the same time I was around an amazing community that was super supportive, that cares about the impact that they are creating.” At the time, Amala had begun the process towards seeking international accreditation with the Council of International Schools (jointly with NEASC, CIS accreditation was granted to Amala at the beginning of 2024). The accreditation process filled Majd with “a new hope that was rising”, that he and his peers would be able to use their Amala certificates to access higher education.
Prior to joining Amala, Majd had ceaselessly tried to apply to universities. He sent emails to anyone who would listen, explaining his situation and how his education had been disrupted because of having to flee his home in Syria. All he was asking for was a chance. “I was just trying to pitch myself, and I was getting rejection after rejection.” Majd’s journey to university shows just how difficult it is for refugees to access higher education, and gave impetus to the founding of his startup, ScholaScope.
Through all the applications he’d been doing, Majd realised that he was adept at navigating the universities’ websites and the application forms. One day, Majd’s friend asked for his help applying to a university in Taiwan. With Majd’s assistance, the friend got a fully funded scholarship. “He was very excited and told everyone around him. His brother then came to me; he wanted to apply for a university in Berlin but didn’t know how. I applied for him, and he was accepted as well”. Their friends then approached Majd, and he saw the opportunity to monetise his skills. He began charging for his time and efforts, but there were so many requests that he couldn’t process all the applications alone. But Majd working alone wasn’t the main issue: he identified the core problem as being how lengthy the application processes to universities were. And this is how, in 2018, Scholascope was born.
The purpose of Scholascope is to “unify the university admissions process, a platform that connects programmes with students worldwide”, a process which Majd describes as“hectic” - even the process of finding the application to begin with is frustrating, he explains. Majd tells us that each application takes an average of eight hours to complete. “Applying, filling it out, collecting and sending the documentation, and requesting feedback. It takes a lot of time.”
Majd presenting ScholaScope as part of his Personal Interest Project (PIP) in the Amala Learning Centre in Amman
ScholaScope went from helping one student in the first year, doubling to two in the next, jumping to 23 students in the third year and in 2022 they helped 60 students. “It was growing like crazy!” says Majd. For his Personal Interest Project (PIP), a core part of the GSD learning programme, Majd had lots of ideas, but opted to use the opportunity to develop ScholaScope. His PIP moved ScholaScope from an offline to an online programme, and he secured a 20,000 euro grant from Oxfam to scale the startup.
In 2022, ScholaScope won startup of the year, and came first out of 100 for ICT start ups in the MENA region. But there were complications with being a refugee in Amman and having a successful start up. He was routinely threatened with deportation back to Syria as he didn’t have the right to register the company under his own name, so was driven to find workarounds in order to protect himself and ScholaScope. He worked with a Jordanian business partner, Niran, who entered ScholaScope into accelerator and incubator programmes in Amman.
Majd was invited to represent ScholaScope in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. The timing, however, was far from perfect. At the same time as ScholaScope’s burgeoning success, Majd got the opportunity to relocate to Canada. “Having a status for me was something that was on my priority list. It’s tiring and frustrating being treated as a refugee all the time, and I wanted to change that”. He had to decide whether to prioritise his refugee status or his business. Ultimately, he realised that having status would protect him in the future. “As an asylum seeker, I'll be kicked out of any country, I will live with uncertainty, but maybe if I have status I won’t be, and then I can continue working on ScholaScope.”
Majd’s experience with Scholascope meant that he was confident in applying to universities with his Amala qualification, so he started sending off lots of emails to admissions offices explaining the Mastery Transcript Consortium (a network which enables Amala to publish competency-based assessment transcripts) and Amala’s educational approach. He took a proactive approach and asked to meet with admissions officers, instead of submitting an application and having to wait for an acceptance or a rejection. “All of them were like, this is the future, this is amazing, but sorry, we can’t accept this yet.” Some universities, like the University of Toronto, said they could accept it as a qualification as a non-traditional high school. Now, with Amala’s international accreditation from CIS and NEASC, more universities will be open to accepting the Global Secondary Diploma.
In 2022, Majd received a partial scholarship to the University of Prince Edward Island in Canada to study Philosophy and Psychology. “It was a huge celebration”, says Majd. “I felt amazing; I was so excited and happy. I wish for this feeling for everyone at Amala.”
With no formal preparation for making the transition to higher education, Majd was challenged by the university enrolment system. With regards to the learning, on the other hand, Majd excelled. In courses such as folk ethics, he got full marks. Majd puts this down to the way that he learnt to demonstrate competency in certain areas at Amala. “Amala helped me talk to the professors and show them that I understood ethical leadership. It wasn’t because I answered the question correctly, but because I could argue correctly. I realised that Amala’s curriculum teaches you a concept, and a growth mindset that remains with you.”
Due to the legal process, Majd is awaiting his permanent residency status in Canada after he was deemed a Convention Refugee, and will resume his studies once he gets his status in order to be able to afford university. He also sees entrepreneurship as a large part of his future. “I know that eventually I’ll have my own business.” Majd did what entrepreneurs do - he was able to identify a problem, and create a solution with monetary value. He worked tirelessly to save up small amounts to pursue his education, and ScholaScope helped accelerate it. “It wouldn’t have been possible without having my own company”, says Majd, highlighting financial challenges as one of the main barriers for refugees relocating and accessing higher education, even with a partially funded scholarship. Majd is now waiting on more permanent status in Canada to be able to have more financial flexibility to work on entrepreneurial projects, rather than having to work nine to five to have secure and stable pay in order to survive.“Maybe in five years, I will refocus on having something of my own”, muses Majd.
“I didn’t have a lot of belief in not-for-profit organisations and NGOs. Amala is the first one that I saw that had a huge impact.”
This interview is the fourth in our series about the first cohort of the Amala Global Secondary Diploma. To make sure you don’t miss out on future Amala alumni stories, follow us on social media (amala_edu on Twitter and Instagram) and sign up to our newsletter.
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