Unlocking the full potential of European Youth
Wednesday 21 September 2022
UniCredit and Teach For All proudly join forces to elevate education for children with an innovative and inclusive pan-European partnership spanning across seven UniCredit core countries: Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, Romania, Slovakia and Serbia.
The newly established UniCredit and Teach For All alliance will leverage on a common approach, focusing on innovation and inclusion to achieve results and to unlock the full potential of European youth, Empowering our Communities to Progress through quality education to secure a more equitable future for all.
Andrea Orcel, CEO of UniCredit, said: “There is no one single factor that will determine the future success of our continent more than the education and development of our young people. To do so, we need to upskill and support teachers, arming them with all the tools they need to be the best educators possible. UniCredit’s commitment to Empowering Communities to Progress goes beyond providing financial support, which is why I am thrilled to announce our work with Teach For All. Our partnership with this fantastic organisation will help us deliver on our commitment to Social improvement, in line with our ESG strategy, and we will leverage UniCredit’s presence across the continent to ensure we reach those communities where there is greatest need. I am excited to see the results of this partnership: results which will impact the whole of Europe for decades to come.”
Wendy Kopp, CEO and Co-founder of Teach For All, said: “Education plays a vital role in the economic and social wellbeing of any region. While some European students are served well by the current systems, there are large numbers of children, particularly from marginalised communities, who are not attaining a quality education. For Europe to meet the challenges of this century, there is an urgent need to work in partnership with schools, governments, and families to ensure that every child has the opportunity to fulfil their potential.”
To date, Teach For All has positively impacted more than 300 000 students in Europe, involving more than 4000 teachers in their programmes and seeing over 9000 alumni continue to work in sectors like school leadership, public policy and social innovation. The collaboration with UniCredit will significantly reinforce these efforts and results, providing resources and support in training the teachers involved to further empower local communities to reimagine education systems in under-resourced areas, and help build more inclusive school environments that offer quality education to all children, year after year.
UniCredit will support the Teach For All network with a donation of nearly €2m to fund activities for the 2022-2023 school year, as well as engage employees as volunteers to drive change by contributing with their time, knowledge and skills. Having positive role models is one of the key levers for students to thrive, through inspirational talks and workshops, as well as the experience of real-world working conditions.
The alliance will leverage the pan-European networks of both organisations, working across borders with local partners for an immediate impact in classrooms and a long-term collective impact in communities. By strengthening the education systems and building an environment that is flexible and innovative, we ensure that children in classrooms today can shape a better tomorrow. This will be achieved by empowering the students, cultivating global activism, engaging with the community, sharing progress and building awareness.
The partnership includes a set of tailored local KPIs in each of the countries.
Italy
In Italy, the focus will be on strengthening the national efforts of Teach For Italy launched in 2020, supporting its three-year plan to scale to at least 100 schools per year from 2024. Furthermore, an e-learning platform will be developed to deliver content and training opportunities to teaching fellows in a more efficient way while sharing knowledge, methodologies, and approaches with the broader school system to accelerate innovation and change in the wider education sector, effectively responding to rising inequalities and structural deficiencies in the country. The goal is to impact up to 10,000 students a year from 2024 and support over 150 Teach For Italy alumni to enter key positions in the education ecosystem by 2025.
Austria
For the past 10 years, Teach For Austria has been working towards achieving its vision of enabling every child through education to lead a good life regardless of his / her parents’ educational or financial status. Equity in education is key to achieving that vision. UniCredit Bank Austria will support Teach For Austria in building educational equity in Middle Schools and Kindergartens in Austria’s urban areas with the highest achievement gap. So far, over 440 highly motivated fellows have made a difference and reached over 45.000 children in more than 100 schools and 30 Kindergartens.
Bulgaria
Bulgaria has the highest educational inequalities in the EU. Teacher and principal training and support lack consistency, deepening the inequalities faced by students. Over the last 12 years, Teach For Bulgaria (Заедно в час) has worked to provide equal access to quality education for every child in the country by recruiting, selecting, training and supporting new teachers from diverse backgrounds and entire school teams. Their program “New ways to teaching” has attracted thousands of applicants each year and has currently over 400 alumni, the majority of whom continue working in education, and over 140 participants presently in their first or second year of the two-year program. UniCredit Bulbank will be supporting Teach For Bulgaria in expanding all these activities to consistently increase their positive impact and reduce educational inequality.
Germany
Every year in Germany more than 50.000 students leave school prematurely without any qualifications. An even larger number struggle with finding a vocational opportunity after leaving school, frequently resulting in the need for support from social services. Since its founding over a decade ago in 2008, Teach First Deutschland has been working towards a vision where all children and young people receive a good education, regardless of their starting conditions. This year, more than 176 fellows are teaching in six federal states. Together with over 700 alumni, they are reaching more than 84.000 students across Germany. HypoVereinsbank will work closely with Teach First Deutschland to significantly increase the number of students reached and extend its fellowship program.
Romania
In Romania, at least two students in every secondary school classroom cannot read. Teach For Romania recruits Romanians with proven leadership abilities and trains and supports them to be outstanding teachers. During the 2020-21 school year, Teach For Romania impacted over 14.000 children through 165 inspirational fellows who taught in over 147 public schools in 22 regions. More than 93% of Teach For Romania fellows saw their students improve their literacy skills drastically last year and 50% of fellows saw improvements in the attendance and participation of students in the classroom. Having scaled their program by over 20% this past year, Teach For Romania will continue to expand it with UniCredit’s help to reach more and more students each school year.
Serbia
In Serbia, the location, family, and socio-economic circumstances in which children are born tend to determine their future educational outcomes and ultimately their options in life. Meanwhile Serbia suffers from a significant school labour force shortage, which considerably affects the allocation of teachers. As a result, rural schools are in some cases closing due to teacher shortage, and children are being relocated to faraway urban and suburban schools. Teach For Serbia and UniCredit will collaborate to improve the availability of quality education for all children through recruiting, training and supporting teachers, developing their collective leadership with a positive long-term impact across the education system in the country. Teach For Serbia is working to join the Teach For All global network in the coming months and at that point, will kick off its collaboration with UniCredit bank in Serbia.
Slovakia
The reading, mathematics, science and literacy skills of students in Slovakia have deteriorated as measured by the OECD PISA tests. This is even more the case for children in socially deprived and underdeveloped communities with the situation dramatically worsening over the last two years due to school lockdowns. For seven years, Teach For Slovakia has been training teachers to teach in classrooms across the country, impacting over 17.000 students. Today, 78% of their 76 alumni work in roles contributing to a long-term impact on Slovakia’s education system. This year, more than 41 fellows taught in 26 schools in the regions of Eastern Slovakia and Bratislava. UniCredit will work closely with Teach For Slovakia to significantly increase the number of students reached and extend its fellowship program.