Nationwide “Educational Landscapes Switzerland” program is launched in the cantons of Basel-Stadt, Freiburg and Zurich

The cantons of Basel-Stadt, Freiburg and Zurich will be participating in the first phase of the program, for which the foundation’s Board of Trustees has set aside funding in the amount of four million Swiss francs. Three educational landscapes will be formed in each of the three cantons. In a second phase, to take place in 2014, the Jacobs Foundation plans to expand the program to include five more cantons.

This program is intended to encourage schools and extracurricular programs to work together in innovative ways to ensure that all children and adolescents have access to high-quality education, both within and outside the school context. Emphasis will be placed on finding the right balance between dividing tasks among parents, schools and community organizations – those involved in caring for and educating young people – and integrating those tasks. Local educational landscapes are an optimal way of addressing the specific problems of individual communities, which may, for example, stem from a high level of cultural heterogeneity or other regional factors. Further information on this topic can be found at www.bildungslandschaften.ch