Education Education Education

At KPMG, we believe in the power of people to do great things. Education is one of the key pillars of our Corporate Citizenship strategy and we believe it is paramount to developing a society for future success.

Our Corporate Citizenship programme creates opportunities for all our people to make a difference. The focus in KPMG is on skills-based volunteering, using the talent and training of our staff to help make a positive difference especially in education. Find out below how we are making a difference. 

We understand that books can open up new worlds, and instil in children a lifelong love for learning, but often those new worlds and that love of learning are not accessible to all children. We’re proud to sponsor the KPMG Children’s Books Ireland Awards and as part of our partnership we run a number of exciting projects help address childhood literacy including our Gift a Book campaign which saw KPMG team up with Children’s Books Ireland and the Arts Council to donate 6,000 Irish books to young people in centres of direct provision, hospitals and homeless services across the country. 

We partnered with Children’s Books Ireland in 2019 to support their BOLD GIRLS initiative. BOLD GIRLS workshops aim to break down societal barriers and instil confidence in girls by showing them female characters in children’s books with passion, power and opinions. KPMG volunteers host creative, innovative workshops in primary schools based on women who changed history, in turn encouraging young girls to achieve their ambitions. Last year, we rolled out a new initiative, BOLD GIRLS programme, BOLD GIRLS meets 20x20 where we introduced children’s books that highlight women in sport to classrooms across Ireland. 

Time to Read is a programme we run with Business in the Community Ireland and local Primary Schools. KPMG volunteers provide one-to-one reading support to pupils from second class. Each child receives reading support once per week for 30 minutes over a 20-week period. The benefits of the programme include an increased enjoyment of reading, improved fluency and comprehension as well as greater confidence and self-discovery in reading. 

KPMG run a Time to Count programme with Business in the Community Ireland and St. Vincent’s Girl’s National School. The aim of the programme is to promote the learning of maths through fun, educational games. Our volunteers meet third class primary pupils once a week for 6 weeks. The programme promotes the enjoyment of mathematics and children begin to see maths skills not as a chore but as a fun activity supported by a volunteer. 

Enactus is an international non-profit organisation supported by KPMG in over 35 countries including Ireland. Enactus works with business leaders and higher education to mobilise university students to make a positive difference in their communities while developing the skills to become socially responsible business leaders. The culmination of each year's activity is a national competition whereby the winning team represents Ireland at the Enactus World Cup.

Each year KPMG people volunteer to mentor students at CBS Westland Row, during their 5th and 6th year of study. The purpose of the programme is to encourage students to remain in school and complete their Leaving Certificate. The mentor works with the mentee to set life goals, look at how they might achieve these goals and identify some milestones to measure their success.  Mentors meet with their student once per academic month and there are numerous social and team building activities over the year also. 

In 2017, Larkin College in Dublin City Centre introduced Accountancy for the Leaving Certificate and asked KPMG to support their fifth-year students with the subject. The aim of the programme is to give Leaving Certificate Accounting students the opportunity to work through difficult questions with the help of an experienced accountant. KPMG volunteers work with groups of 2-3 students in one-hour sessions over a 6-week period. 

In 2017, KPMG started working with the National College of Ireland on their early learning initiative, Doodle Den, an evidence-informed after-school programme which aims to address literacy needs amongst senior infants. KPMG people volunteer in numerous Dublin City schools to support children’s literacy development and encourage their interest in reading.

Junior Achievement Ireland (JAI) encourages young people to remain in education and helps them develop the skills they need to succeed in a changing world. Every year, our volunteers are placed in schools in Dublin, Cork and Belfast to implement these practical programmes. 

Through Project Bright, we asked our staff to come up with innovative ways to help benefit our local communities. The winning idea focused on implementing a recurring LEGO® after-school activity for children within the North-East Inner City (NEIC).

The key aim of this initiative is to promote equal equity of outcome amongst all children regardless of background or circumstance via local enrichment programmes.

Visit our KPMG LEGO® Club page

At KPMG, we want to help disadvantaged students fulfil their potential. We fund and support different programmes and scholarships in a bid to achieve this. 

• The Denis O’Connor KPMG Doctoral Scholarship in Accounting is a partnership with the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School and celebrates the leadership of the late Denis O'Connor - former Managing Partner of KPMG in Ireland. 
• We are active supporters of the Trinity Access Programme which supports people from areas with low progression rates to higher education to reach their full educational potential
• We also help fund a scholarship for students from disadvantaged backgrounds to attend Belvedere College and Gonzaga College.