TOP – Tutoring Online Program

TOP – Tutoring Online Programme is an innovative online study support project, trialled starting in 2020 based on an idea at Bocconi and Harvard Universities, aimed at bridging the widening educational poverty aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Educational poverty, i.e. the condition whereby a student is not guaranteed the right to learn, train, acquire skills and cultivate their passions and abilities, particularly affects the most vulnerable children, from families with economic and social difficulties, but also affects those with cognitive and behavioural difficulties or emotional and interpersonal problems. 

In 2021, as part of its Social & Human Services Area, Fondazione Cariplo decided to invest in the programme to consolidate its model and increase its impact on its catchment area, entrusting its operational management to CIAI (Italian Centre for Child Aid) and continuing the collaboration with the founding universities. 

TOP is aimed at middle school leavers in the Lombardy Region and offers them the support of volunteer university students from Lombardy universities. The participating schools refer students based on their need for school support, but also on other characteristics such as the ability to recognise their educational needs and the desire to address them. The tutors are volunteer university students, who receive training on pedagogical principles and tutoring methodologies, conducted by Bicocca University, as well as on the Child Protection Policy – CPP, consisting of guidelines to be followed in relations with children, edited by CIAI. 

Tutors (volunteer university students) and tutees (middle school students) are paired based on certain characteristics, including language skills, tutoring experience, academic course, time availability, subjects in which support is requested or offered and any previous training in the field of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). The choice of a peer learning approach, which links up people relatively close to each other in age and experience, aims to encourage an exchange and discussion that is as equal as possible. 

Tutoring takes place entirely online over the Tutornow platform. Tutors and tutees also have a supervisor as a point of reference, who contacts them to support the tutoring process and encourage dialogue with the school and the tutee’s family. For students who need it, TOP provides refurbished devices and an internet connection, made possible by an agreement with TechSoup Italia. 

The results of the mentoring programme have been recorded via an impact assessment according to the counterfactual approach, conducted by Bocconi University. The analyses of previous editions showed that participation in TOP had a positive influence not only on academic performance (three months of tutoring is equivalent to approximately nine months of classroom learning), but also on educational aspirations and the children’s psychological and socio-emotional well-being. In light of the programme’s results, especially in terms of the beneficiaries’ academic performance, from 2025 the TOP programme formed part of the prevention activities of the ZeroNEET mandate challenge, under the Cross-sectoral Philanthropic Activities & Mandate Challenges Area. 

Institutional partners

  • Fondazione Cariplo: the programme promoter and funder, it supervises the entire process and relations with the parties involved. 
  • CIAI (Italian Centre for Child Aid): implementing partner of the programme, responsible for operational management. As part of TOP, it is responsible for recruiting and training supervisors to work with tutors, providing training on the Child Protection Policy and controlling its application, maintaining relations with schools and technical partners, and monitoring project progress by keeping in regular contact with the team. 
  • Bocconi University: programme creator and scientific partner, responsible for impact assessment, in conjunction with Harvard University. It is responsible for attracting applications from middle schools and tutors, for matching tutors and tutees using an algorithm that pairs their characteristics, and for administration of evaluation questionnaires to all the parties involved, to carry out the impact assessment. 
  • Bicocca University, Milan: responsible for tutors’ pedagogical and methodological training. It is responsible for training both tutors and supervisors, organises supervision meetings for tutors, and assesses the impact of the chosen tutoring model on the tutors’ skills development. 

Technical partners

  • Tutornow: the platform on which all TOP activities take place. It ensures a safe environment and provides tools for running lessons. 
  • TechSoup: an international non-profit organisation, providing technological solutions to the third sector. As part of TOP, it is responsible for reconditioning devices and distributing them to students who request them. 

Lombardy universities in conjunction with TOP for volunteer tutors

  • IULM 
  • Polytechnic University of Milan 
  • Bocconi University 
  • Carlo Cattaneo University – LIUC 
  • Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore 
  • University of Insubria 
  • University of Bergamo 
  • University of Brescia 
  • Bicocca University, Milan 
  • University of Pavia 
  • Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele