Welcome to The Economist Educational Foundation

For over a decade The Economist Educational Foundation has been equipping young people with the critical thinking skills to develop nuanced perspectives on the most complex current issues.

We are an independent charity dedicated to empowering young people, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds, to engage with current affairs critically and confidently - fostering informed, open-minded and thoughtful citizens. We specialise in developing critical thinking, communication and media literacy skills. In an era of unprecedented global change and digital transformation, equipping young people with these skills has become vital to their future success and civic participation.

Our Topical Talk programme empowers children to engage in deep current affairs discussions in school, nurturing informed, open-minded and thoughtful citizens. We create non-partisan teaching resources which are designed to omit teacher opinion entirely.

Topical Talk combines 175 years of journalistic expertise from The Economist newspaper with cutting edge pedagogy from our trained teachers. It helps teachers to lead inspiring discussions about news that teach students to think critically, listen effectively, speak clearly and understand the world.

Our Topical Talk programme reached 532,000 students in 2024-25. We have over 10,800 teachers across 86 countries who use our lessons. 

Topical Talk builds young people’s creativity, problem solving, speaking and listening skills, essential given the rise in misinformation and decline in democracy. Our programme uniquely builds essential skills through current affairs discussions. Our fifteen-year track record demonstrates significant impact: 

For the third consecutive year, students regularly participating in Topical Talk make seven times more progress than peers in essential skills.

Beyond core skill development, Topical Talk significantly enhances students' understanding of the news and their media literacy: 

98% of teachers agreed that Topical Talk improved their students' knowledge of current affairs.

86% of teachers observed a marked improvement in their students' media literacy. 

Our work is increasingly urgent. At a time when understanding and engaging with news has never been more critical and developing essential skills is needed to succeed at school and at work, we are uniquely positioned to equip the next generation with the skills they need to become informed, thoughtful citizens. We have an ambitious goal to reach one million children globally by 2026 and we hope you can come with us on that journey.