Teach For Austria

In Austria, children’s educational success highly depends on their socio-economic background, with reports showing the links between background, the language spoken at home, school choice and early school leaving. This leads to significant performance gaps between students from high and low socio-economic backgrounds. Additionally, the education system is facing considerable staff shortages, with an ageing teaching force and rising numbers of students (Education and Training Monitor). The Swarovski Foundation is proud to support Teach For Austria’s work to ensure quality education for all.

‍Teach For Austria is working toward a Vision 2050 in which all children in Austria have a chance to live a good life, no matter how much education and/or income their parents have. Teach For Austria facilitates educational opportunities for socio-economically disadvantaged students by building a movement of top graduates, who become inspiring teachers and leading actors for social change – so-called ‘Fellows’.

The Fellows not only have a direct impact on students, they also strengthen and improve existing efforts within low-income schools and kindergartens to increase educational opportunities. In the long run, they become leaders driving systemic change in the educational field and continue to support Teach For Austria’s vision.

Our Partnership

Since 2014, the Swarovski Foundation has supported Teach For Austria’s core fellowship programme and helped them recruit, train and place a total of 36 Fellows, reaching over 3,600 children in disadvantaged schools in Austria.

However, over the years, our collaboration with a focus on combating educational inequality has evolved into a multi-layered partnership, creating several initiatives that encourage participants to engage with social and environmental challenges. In 2019, we supported the ‘Shine Brighter Challenge’, a design competition set up to foster children’s creativity, where they were encouraged to develop environmental projects around the topic ‘Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ using upcycled Swarovski crystals.

Additionally, since 2020, a number of Fellows have integrated the Waterschool programme in their teaching to promote water education and empower children with the knowledge and skills needed to improve their local environments. In 2022, we were also able to distribute 1,000 reusable water bottles in schools to support their efforts to encourage children to only drink water and teach them about sustainability.

The Swarovski Foundation has a seat on the Board of Teach For Austria, currently held by our Chair Marisa Schiestl-Swarovski.