International Education Day: the importance of education

Since 2018, the United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed January 24 as International Education Day, celebrating the role and impact that education has in the cultural and social development of people and communities.                                          
In this fifth edition, the anniversary brings to the attention of the international community and public opinion the need to accelerate the implementation of the commitments made by representatives of 130 governments during the UN Summit on the Transformation of Education (TES) in September 2022, underlining how the priority of investments on education is a strong lever for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including "Quality Education".

At the UN Summit on the Transformation of Education (TES) in September 2022, the international community identified six calls for action to accelerate change:

1. 1.    make schools places of well-being and safe, free from bullying and violence by facilitating inclusiveness
2. 2.    promote gender equality in access to education and educational opportunities
3. 3.    enhance and strengthen teachers' competences
4. 4.    promote awareness of the environmental emergency in students
5. 5.    leverage the ongoing digital revolution to the advantage of teachers and students
6. 6.    increase the financial resources allocated to education.

These appeals were inspired by this thesis proposed by the young people present at the summit: "if we want to survive and prosper in planetary peace, justice and equality, education is our main source of hope and resolution". The declaration strongly highlights the links between education, justice in the climate transition, gender equality, inclusion, work and sustainable development.

Digital technologies are transforming our lives, opening up new horizons also in terms of learning and information and offering greater opportunities for growth, but they also bring with them new risks and uncertainties. People can become protagonists by choosing to be active citizens, a condition that can only be achieved by acquiring, metabolising and making the best use of constantly evolving knowledge and skills. And it is precisely for this reason that education represents a right and a necessary tool to face the challenges that continuous change imposes.                                              
Guaranteeing the right to education for all requires responsibility and courageous and concrete actions on the part of the institutions and of society as a whole. For example, the school must be capable of preparing today's young people who will live in a society whose evolution we can only imagine. This poses important questions to the educational community on the subjects of study, on the skills to be developed and on the innovative methodologies to be adopted. Educational institutions, teachers, families, the business world and civil society must take responsibility for creating the conditions to help young people discover their aptitudes and inclinations in order to grow and become active citizens. This action produces positive impacts in terms of guidance and the prevention of early school leaving.

Investing in education means investing in people and in the new generations. Indeed, Intesa Sanpaolo has for years been committed to supporting SDGs 4 "Quality education" and this commitment has also been renewed with the new Business Plan which indicates investing in education while keeping a high focus on young people and the their right to education, training and access to the world of work.

We have done so much, but we still want to do so much. Involving more and more schools, universities, teachers, students, researchers and colleagues, we will continue to initiate, and support projects and initiatives aimed at:

• - support primary school by providing ideas and teaching tools that allow teachers and parents to amplify the learning experience by always keeping children, their actions and their languages at the center
• - generate inclusion to concretely contribute to making education a tool for reducing social unease, inequalities and the lack of homogeneity existing between different areas of the country
•  - help the School and the University in welcoming the specificities and enhancing the abilities and potential of each one through educational methods and orientation programs, actions in support of merit and social mobility and teaching coherent with the different needs to make each student protagonist of the learning
•  - support Universities to further improve the quality of the teaching proposal to train professionals capable of bringing added value to their social contexts and to the companies in which they will work
• - support the growth of young researchers by attracting Italian and international talen
• - broaden the dialogue between companies, schools and universities  to make it increasingly concrete and open so that mutual needs are understood, and effective strategies are implemented to guide students' choices towards the most sought-after employment fields
• - enhance the dissemination of culture and financial literacy towards younger generations and adults, through numerous initiatives and workshops offered by the Savings Museum, our phygital museum dedicated to financial education.

All of this makes our investment in education concrete, a commitment that aims to help improve access to quality education.                                                                          
Education is an essential driver for producing sustainable development, social progress and economic growth.