Mentoring Offers Promise in Classrooms

The educational system in Northern Ireland is not meeting the needs of individuals or society. 21% leave school without achieving the minimum standards for success; many leave with no qualifications at all. 23% of adults have no qualifications, and 28% are economically inactive.

Purpose and Impact of the Grant

Business in the Community is tackling this problem by bringing corporate employees into schools as mentors to disadvantaged youth (many from families in which no one has held a steady job for several generations).

Three programmes – Time to Read, Time to Count, and Time to Compute – build the skills of 8-to-11-year-olds. The Big Move helps 11- and 12-year-olds transfer to new schools. The Student Mentoring Programme encourages self-confidence in 15-to-16-year-olds. e-Pals, an internet mentoring programme, develops confidence and IT skills in 16- and 17-year-olds.

These programmes represent a promising but not yet proven model. With Atlantic support, Business in the Community is testing and refining the model to be sure that the programmes:

• Reach the students most in need of them
• Can expand to large portions of the educational system in Northern Ireland (and potentially in the Republic of Ireland and elsewhere in the European Union)
• Can be delivered consistently across schools
• Achieve the desired results of better educational skills, self-confidence, and personal and professional aspirations.