Education Magazine

Students reap real benefits from Corporate Volunteering Programmes  

Michael

Repro Free; Thursday 20th March 2025, Business in the Community Ireland (BITCI) is celebrating another successful year of its Student Mentoring Programme with its annual graduation taking place in Griffith College. This academic year, 23 partnerships between companies and DEIS schools across the country participated with 194 pupils in 5th and 6th year benefitting. Our Student Mentoring Programme, pairs pupils with individual corporate volunteers, giving students a chance to connect and communicate on an adult level with professionals in the working world, helping to improve confidence, communication, and social skills as well as receiving guidance on CV, interview technique and career-focussed. Pictured with Andrea Lazenby Simpson head of Education BITCI were students Ronan Gilbane, Marcus Mackey, David Andrei Crisan from Fingal Community School, Dublin. Picture Jason Clarke

(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

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