The school, the epicenter of change
Because we know that schools are the place where the citizens of the future are educated, one of our major commitments, included in the Group’s Sustainability Master Plan, is to achieve a positive impact on schools and their students in order to promote change through education.
We support educational transformation
Education is evolving at a rapid pace due to the advance of technology and new paradigms, such as neuroscience, which are beginning to be introduced in classrooms throughout Latin America.
At Santillana, we support the educational community in this transformation, promoting its progress and achieving meaningful learning for all students.
Digital transformation
Technology is changing many areas of our lives, and education is no exception.
Big Data offers great opportunities when it comes to personalizing learning, while artificial intelligence, due to its enormous potential, continues to make inroads and capture the interest of families, managers, and teachers. At Santillana we follow these and other trends closely, in line with our commitment to innovation and technology.
With solutions that move in a hybrid way between print and digital, we have versatile projects that adapt to the needs of each school. Currently, we have educational projects from 3 to 18 years old, which include content, services, and innovative methodologies.
Our teaching systems under subscription models, such as Compartir, UNOi or CREO, are our most robust proposal, and include the support of our network of coaches, the largest in Latin America.
At the same time, we continue to focus on innovation, with the launch of new educational solutions for learning analytics based on student performance and socioemotional components such as UNOintelligence and iM-PROVE. THESE FIRST STEPS WILL BE DEVELOPED OVER THE NEXT FEW YEARS.
half of the experts consulted in the report ‘The Future of Artificial Intelligence in Education in Latin America’ believe that AI will have a profound impact on education in Latin America in the coming years?
Main platforms
- e-stela and RLP (Richmond Learning Platform), which simplify collaboration, communication and effective learning across subject areas
- Plenary, which provides detailed evaluations of student progress
- EDI (Integrated Digital Ecosystem), where all school services are integrated into a single environment. In 2023 we consolidated its presence in Brazil and Mexico and extended its reach to new markets in Latin America.
In 2023, these solutions exceeded 153 million sessions (+19.5% vs. 2022) and 3.3 million active users (+10% vs. 2022).
Global Director of Educational Technology.
Featured project
iM-PROVE
Learning about our brain and our emotions
Social and environmental challenges are also affecting the teaching-learning processes. In 2023, we are committed to raising awareness of cross-cutting issues in education, which have become a priority since the Covid-19 pandemic.
One of them is, undoubtedly, the socioemotional training of the educational community. Today, more than ever, it is urgent that we train our students to become aware of their emotions, learn to regulate them, be empathetic and establish relationships based on assertiveness and transparency. For this, we have solutions such as Emotilab and the Crescemos program.
We have also deepened the collection of data on the emotional states of our students, which allows us to better understand how they are doing and to implement accompaniment strategies, with projects such as UNOIntelligence.
In recent decades, the strongest and most solidly based didactic trend has been the one based on the advances in neuroscience. This is why neuropedagogy and neurodidactics are today the basis of most of our editorial projects. The possibility of understanding how the brain learns has provided us with many didactic tools to improve the teaching-learning processes.
The advances of neurodidactics in our projects:
- Siste+ de Compartir Project, Ecuador
- Terra de Compartir Project, Costa Rica
Featured project
Emotilab
A transformation in which no one is left behind
To ensure that no one is left behind in this transformation, we have a strong social commitment to teachers and students, our priority audiences in the Social Action Plan, approved in 2023.
We materialize this commitment through the company’s social initiatives and also through Fundación Santillana, the organization with which we contribute to the dissemination of good educational practices and the promotion of inclusion, diversity and equity in classrooms throughout Latin America.
Inclusive education
We know that the variety of students in our classrooms is very wide and that the school must respond to all types of student realities.
That is why we have implemented Santillana Inclusiva, a program that addresses the needs of different groups of children: autistic syndrome, dyslexia, Down syndrome, hearing and visual impairment, attention deficit, and high abilities.
In 2023, we presented this proposal at the 1st Inclusive Education Congress, which was attended by more than 24,000 people.
In 2023, Santillana made adaptations to improve accessibility in nearly 165,000 pages of its projects in Brazil.
In addition to this project, at Santillana we respond to requests from schools to adapt our content to specific needs.
In Brazil alone, some 165,000 pages of books were adapted in 2023 to make them accessible (Braille, enlarged text font, bold text, contrasting color criteria, spiral-bound book finishing, etc.).
In Argentina we have also maintained, for years, a partnership with Tiflonexos, the non-profit association behind the first digital library for the visually impaired in the world.
Inclusion is also one of the cornerstones of our social action, as evidenced by some of the projects we promote. The #VoyaSer program, developed in alliance with Fundación Entreculturas-Fe and Alegría, offers comprehensive assistance to low-income indigenous girls, aimed at helping them complete secondary school and acquire a series of key competencies and skills for their future.
To this end, the girls are offered training in basic digital skills and another in socioemotional skills, in addition to the accompaniment of Santillana professionals. The program also includes training for teachers to support them in tutoring the students.
Featured project
Santillana Inclusiva
In addition, we reach out to other vulnerable populations to facilitate their access to quality education through financial and in-kind donations.
In 2023, 95% of our donations to vulnerable groups were educational materials.
Generating awareness of change
We want to be a decisive actor in raising awareness of the major social and environmental challenges of the 21st century and to drive change towards sustainable development in education. To this end, we create valuable content aimed at students and families as well as schools.
Bringing sustainability closer to students and families
98% of our new projects incorporate sustainability content, with activities linked to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We are also contributing to this awareness through our literature labels. We currently have more than 2,000 titles with stories related to the 2030 Agenda.
Featured project
#8MConectadas Campaign
In addition, in 2023 we participated in projects aimed at creating awareness of change, such as Environmentally Friendly Schools, in alliance with the Heraldo de Honduras and other companies; environmental education workshops, carried out in Uruguay with the collaboration of Repapel; and ecological workshops for schools, promoted by Santillana Chile.
Finally, throughout the year we conducted external awareness campaigns, such as the ones we carried out in 2023 (8M Conectadas and No more Matildas). In both, we offered open content on the need to move toward real equality.
Bringing sustainability closer to educators
Because to teach about sustainability you first must understand what it is, we have a strong commitment to teacher training in ESG issues.
We developed specific content aimed at facilitating teachers’ day-to-day work, such as the sustainability calendars created by Argentina and Venezuela; the videos developed by Mexico in collaboration with other Santillana companies; and the pills (píldoras) created by Ecuador.
Global Content Director.
In 2023, we launched the first of a series of open courses for all teachers in Latin America on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Nearly 5,000 teachers registered for this training, entitled “Educating for Sustainable Development” and available on our Training Pathways platform and on the Fundación Santillana website.
In addition, that year we launched, together with the OIS and Fundación Santillana, the Sustainable Schools Award, which aims to identify, recognize and make visible the commitment of schools to sustainability, so that they can inspire educational centers. In the award events, the best sustainability practices were applied, which led us to receive the Certificate of Compliance from Eventsost.
Finally, we bring sustainability closer to educators with our free events and other open content, such as the podcasts Escuelas que inspiran (Peru) or Educación y Relaciones étnico-raciales (Brazil) or the magazines Ruta Maestra (Colombia) and Educatrix (Brazil).
Featured project
Sustainable Schools
