(Lead picture: Pupils from Fingal Community College and Andrea Lazenby Simpson, BITCI Head of Education)
Business in the Community Ireland (BITCI), leaders in sustainability and social inclusion, is proud to be celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2025.
Core to its work is tackling systemic educational disadvantage by partnering DEIS schools nationwide with local businesses to deliver dedicated programmes.
Through corporate volunteering initiatives, employers engage with both primary and secondary school pupils through a range of programmes that provide soft skills, career insights, mentoring, work placements, internships and workplace visits.
Volunteers also provide literacy and numeracy supports at primary level through Time to Read and Count programmes.
All our programmes succeed in boosting pupils’ self-confidence, improving their educational attainment, supporting school retention and attendance, raising their career expectations and expanding their professional network.
If you are a DEIS school and would like to avail of a programme, please get in touch with edteam@bitc.ie and consider approaching a local company to partner with your school.
Supporting educators too
For educators, we deliver two very successful programmes that are specifically tailored to providing supports to educators, career guidance counsellors and school leadership:
1. Industry Insights for Teachers showcases business sectors, companies, recruitment practices, entry routes, skills gaps, career progression, and apprenticeships to post-primary schools.
Typically a 1-2 hour session online or on site, topics have included focussed apprenticeship sessions and cover a range of business sectors and nationwide locations.
2. Management Excellence for Principals taps into the expertise of Ireland’s top business leaders, offering unique insights and real-world tools tailored to educational leaders.
Topics include Leadership Development, Personal Effectiveness, Change Management, Performance Management, and PR, Marketing & Branding.
To learn more about any of our education programmes, please email: edteam@bitc.ie
See the full list of our student programmes here:
www.bitc.ie/programmes/education-programmes
