Changing lives since 1958

Since STS’s beginnings back in 1958, over a million young adventurers have had the opportunity to see new places, discover new cultures and learn new languages. They’ve done this while making friends around the world, overcoming personal challenges, recovering from nasty sunburns, shedding tears of joy and surviving bittersweet farewells. But most importantly, they’ve done it all while fostering intercultural understanding and a sense of global community. So how did we get here?

Eyes on the future

It started with one man’s prophetic vision of where the world was headed and what was needed for a whole generation to move towards a better future – a future where intercultural communication, an understanding of diversity and a sense of kinship to all mankind were crucial for peace, prosperity and progress. Lars Magnusson made it his life’s mission to prepare young students for that future and came up with a revolutionary idea, something no company had done before on a large scale: he organised a trip for young learners to explore the world without their parents, to grow as human beings, learn languages and become citizens of the world.

Lars Magnusson founded STS Education back in 1958. His vision, passion and hard work have made STS what is it today and given over a million students the chance to travel the world, learn new languages and grow as individuals and world citizens. Lars and his wife Ethel worked actively at STS HQ until 2015 and still visit the office regularly, where we recently celebrated Ethel’s ninetieth birthday.

That first trip took a small group of Swedish youths to Mattsee in Austria to enjoy a few summer weeks together and practice their German. It was such a great success that the next year over 600 students travelled to England, and the numbers quickly grew to over 2,000 students per year. That quick growth allowed us to expand into new areas over the years.

Today we focus solely on our core programmes: language travel and high school exchanges. We do this because we believe they are the things that can most significantly benefit young learners. It is our greatest conviction that experience-based learning is the best way to grow, to mature, to be challenged and to gain a sense of self.

Experience and dedication

It’s safe to say that in our decades of work we’ve seen it all, the good and the bad. Thankfully, it’s been overwhelmingly good, but we’d be lying if we said it hasn’t been without its fair share of challenges. However, with the dedication of passionate leadership and the hard work of expert teams we’ve overcome them all. We’ve also learnt from the past and grown stronger as individuals and as an organisation.

Over 60 years after that first trip, STS Education is still run by the same family and led by the same principles. We now operate in 11 countries and send thousands of young students to 23 countries around the world each year for short-term language trips and high school exchanges. Time has proven Lars Magnusson right, and his original mission is now more important, more relevant and more pressing than ever. His vision and passion are still the guiding forces behind what we do and what we see as our mission, our duty and our great privilege.

We can’t wait to see what the next 60 years will bring.

Some important milestones

In our 62 years of history we’ve gone through a lot of changes and a lot of growth. We’ve evolved with the times and adapted our products to an ever more connected world. Here are some of the most significant milestones in the history of STS.