JA Italia for Tomorrow’s School

How can JA Italia contribute to developing a new school model capable of responding to today’s educational challenges?

We envisioned a process capable of guiding Junior Achievement Italia from vision to strategy. A clear future emerged, structured around three key domains—digital innovation, sustainability, and youth empowerment—each enriched by a set of keywords defining scenarios and needs.

The challenge lay in translating this initial vision into a practical, operational, and shared strategic framework. To achieve this, we put the JA Italia community—volunteers, professionals, teachers, and students—at the center of a participatory process of validation and co-design, aiming to foster systemic change within education.

Enabling School

The concept of an “Enabling School” forms the core of JA Italia’s vision for the future of education—a common horizon guiding the entire process. It’s the shared image of a school that provides tools and conditions for each individual to fully develop their potential, promoting a continuous relationship between education, community, and the future. It’s a school characterised by constant educational innovation, where teachers are valued, and learning experiences open up to businesses and local communities—a school that doesn’t merely instruct but accompanies, guides, and empowers.

To map the foundational elements of this “Enabling School,” we conducted qualitative interviews with representative figures from the JA community—teachers, volunteers, ambassadors, and students—using the appreciative inquiry approach. Each conversation highlighted successful past experiences and envisioned futures, allowing us to capture specific perspectives and needs, desired roles, and key levers for change.

Subsequently, during the Entrepreneurship Championships 2024, we shared a validation survey with a broad audience of participants, primarily students. The intersection of quantitative and qualitative results revealed a coherent profile of the enabling school: a structured space for dialogue among schools, businesses, and policymakers, where new roles and approaches can transform existing schools into generative ecosystems.

The strategic construction phase culminated in two workshops attended by JA Italia’s Scientific Committee and outgoing Board. Together, we crafted a shared map of priority objectives, organized them chronologically, and linked them to concrete strategic actions. Each action was planned with consideration for potential risks, uncertainties, and stakeholders to involve, ensuring their effectiveness. These steps allowed us to move from a generative vision to a strategic, programmatic, and operational framework capable of guiding JA Italia over the next five years, resulting in the development of the Strategic Guidelines 2025–2030.

The Strategic Guidelines developed with JA Italia initiate a new cycle of positioning and impact. With these collaboratively designed guidelines, the enabling school is no longer just a vision—it is a cultural and operational model to strive for in the next five years.