The Jesuit Education Foundation was officially established on February 17, 2014 in Milan, at the San Fedele Cultural Center, as an operational tool to respond effectively and incisively to the educational challenge of contemporary society, according to the particular charism of the Society of Jesus.

This was an important historical step, with which seven schools (in Turin, Milan, Rome, Naples, Palermo, Messina and Shkodra in Albania) for a total of about five thousand students, from kindergarten to high school, and six hundred workers including teachers and other professional figures, were brought together for the first time in an innovative legal form (that of a Foundation of participation) to relaunch the educational apostolate of the Society of Jesus in Italy and Albania.

Father Vitangelo Denora SJ, to whom the Foundation owes its establishment not only in form, but also in terms of ideas, vision, content and enthusiasm, stated on that occasion that “the mission of the Foundation is to safeguard over time and creatively develop the identity, human resources and material patrimony of our schools in Italy, ensuring their constant and continuous renewal, as well as their adherence to the charism and spirituality of the Society of Jesus. One of the objectives of the new organization will be to make our schools, thanks to funds and scholarships, increasingly accessible to needy and deserving students, according to the desire of our founder St. Ignatius of Loyola”.

In the following four years, thanks to the work of the first Board of Directors, led by the then President Father Vitangelo Denora, the Director Guido Bigotto and accompanied by a staff that has grown and organized itself, the Foundation has structured and outlined its areas of activity, processes and priorities for action.

In December 2017, St. Aloysius College of Malta, with about 1500 students, also officially joined the network. This was a significant milestone, inserting new realities, ideas, people and richness into our network of schools. This entry was a natural follow-up to the birth of the new Euro-Mediterranean Province of the Society of Jesus in July 2017.

A number of sporting entities that adhere to the Ignatian vision, values and educational project also participate in the Foundation.

Another important element that expresses in a “tangible and significant” way the long work of the first four years of the Foundation is the publication of the first edition of the “Guidelines for the schools of the Jesuit Education Network“. This is an important and founding document that deals with the “macro-themes” (Formation, Curriculum, Pastoral, Internationality, Technology, Governance and Administration) of what characterizes and distinguishes an Ignatian school in the 21st century. Some have even called it, perhaps with a little excessive enthusiasm, the “new contemporary Ratio Studiorum”.

In 2018, the Board of Directors was renewed and Father Jimmy Bartolo SJ, Rector of St. Aloysius College in Malta, was appointed President of the Foundation.

An important milestone in the work of the second quadrennium of the Jesuit Education Foundation is the publication of the third volume of the “Guidelines for the Schools of the Jesuit Education Network,” which integrate and update the two previous volumes, based on new needs that have emerged more recently, with particular attention to global citizenship education, education through sport, Ignatian identity, human resource management, communication and fundraising.

For Jesuits and lay people working in the field of education, strengthening their belonging to a common network is indispensable in order to express today a precise identity and a recognizable, strong and exciting proposal.

Our network of Ignatian schools is a way, therefore, to ensure that each school is not alone in facing the educational challenges of the present time, also through an increasingly shared co-responsibility between religious and lay people committed to carrying out this apostolate according to Ignatian spirituality and pedagogy.

On September 27, 2021, the Board of Directors was renewed for a new term.