Italian Education Profile - Education - The British Council Italy

THE ITALIAN EDUCATION PROFILE

Government priorities and reform

Introduction

In most fields in Italy there is often an enormous gap between the announcement of programmes and reforms and their application. Minister Luigi Berlinguer on taking up his double post of Minister for the Ministry for Universities and Scientific and Technological Research (MURST) and for the Ministry for Public Instruction (MPI) sought to introduce widespread reform into Italy's lower and higher education systems. His aim was to make a number of single key reforms which, working together, could produce a gradual but profound renewal of the entire system; a combination of greater flexibility in employment of academics, of quality controls in research and in the distribution of funding. He had a difficult task, mainly because of resistance from a profoundly conservative academic establishment, especially among university staff where access to teaching posts is via a complex public exam system that has little to do with merit and much to do with recommendations and favours. Once inside the system it is very difficult to bring about changes or go against the tide of majority thinking although more and more university staff are beginning to speak out and demand certain changes to the education constitution.

For Reform within schools please click here.

Easy access to the majority of university faculties, resulting in overcrowded campuses, has made obtaining a degree a difficult and long-term objective. The average age of a graduate is 27 years; only one in three students graduates. 25% of students enrolled in the 1995-96 academic year abandoned their course of study between the first and second years*. Students who are still studying after the "normal" four years of study make-up 38.6% of the student population (fuori corso)*. For every 100 unemployed 28 are graduates. The cost for the education of a graduate is around 100 million lire (Ł35,000). University reform is therefore a necessity. The current reform, being implemented by the present Minister for MURST, Ortensio Zecchino, will affect the legal status of some 50,000 professors in 70 Italian universities.

For Reform within universities please click here.

Education Reform

Under the Bassanini Act (Law n. 127 of 15 May 1997), which sets the ground for the development of educational decentralisation and school autonomy in the years to come, its implications for the education system are, in terms of the Act, that "all the administrative functions and responsibilities concerning their respective districts at present carried out by any institution or administration of the State whether central or peripheral or through other public authorities or bodies will be transferred to the regions and local authorities". In other words, the management function of central authorities in the field of education will be transferred to the regional and local level, an important change which will likely have a great impact. Although many schools currently exhibit greater autonomy than the law allowed, this is a far step from the creation of a culture of autonomy that is consistent with the new Act. The heavy tradition of centralism and "top down" authority to the school level will require significant time for staff to learn how to behave under the new conditions. To have the new system fully in place by the end of the year 2000 is probably an impossible task, notwithstanding the resonance of the date signaling the beginning of the new millennium.

The institution of a national system for quality in education (ministerial directive May 1997), ie a system to show how effective Italy's education system is and whether its students are reaching acceptable standards irrespective of which school they are attending. With the implementation of the principle of autonomy in schools, a system of evaluation which allows quality issues to be addressed in an objective manner becomes indispensable. Proposals along these lines have already been put forward at the national conference on schools in 1990, but efforts at implementation have failed to materialise.

A new decree (Law n.30 2 February 2000), means significant changes to the school cycle starting from September 2001.

Pre-School Education

Pre-schools will still accept children between the ages of 3 and 6. Pre-schooling is not obligatory.

Primary Education

Primary school attendance will be compulsory from the ages of 6 and 13. The Scuola Elementare and the Scuola Media, Primary and Lower Secondary Education, will become one cycle.

Upper Secondary Education

Between 13 and 15 years there will be a further two years of compulsory education. Children may then either leave school or continue for another three years, until the age of 18, at an institution which offers a course of study in the following categories:

the humanities
scientific
technical/vocational education
the arts/music

Reform within Primary Education

teachers will have to have a degree . Up until the present time teachers needed to have a diploma from an Istituto/scuola magistrale plus an abilitazione before taking part in the various concorsi for a school placing. Now prospective teachers will have to follow a four-year university course to obtain a degree in infant/primary education laurea in scienze della formazione primaria. Universities were informed to arrange suitable courses starting in the Autumn of 1998. (The Istituti Magistrali and Scuole Magistrali are being phased out).
headteachers have now been given more autonomy. Until now schools, which close at lunchtime (08.30 to 12.30), have been obliged to open on Saturdays. Schools can now re-organise the time-table around a five day week making more use of afternoons and allowing time for more recreational lessons.
a new system of marking for school reports. Previous marking was from A to E. There are now 5 voices from excellent ottimo to insufficient non sufficiente.
a foreign language, probably English should already be on schools' curriculums but standards vary from school to school.

Reform within Lower and Upper Secondary Schools

The cost of buying text-books will have a ceiling. A new decree has set the maximum amount books should cost for middle and upper schools. A limit already exists for the elementary level. The ceiling for middle school will be 531 thousand lire and 588 thousand lire for upper school. The ministerial ceiling does not include dictionaries and atlases, but every family should be able to save as much as 370 thousand lire. The decree underlines that the ceiling amount does not necessarily need to be reached, although the limit must not succeed more than 10% and must be approved by the School Council. Teachers should now choose textbooks based both on the quality of the text and its price tag. Publishers may also have to re-think their pricing policies.
in their penultimate year in school students will receive guidance on university careers and in their final year will have the right to reserve a place on the degree course of their choice. In the first three months at university they will be free to switch to another faculty.
prospective teachers will have to follow a two-year specialist course after gaining their degree.
students will have to learn two foreign languages.
the maturità (A-levels) has changed. Students now have to take three written papers, Italian, mathematics and a 'test' covering all subjects. The oral test will also cover all subjects.
plans are being made for a longer and more 'recreational' timetable. Teachers would have to work extra hours but they would receive a rise in pay. There are no plans for reducing teaching staff.

Schools, parity after 50 years*

The State's monopoly on education has ended. With 231 votes in favour 160 opposed and 4 abstentions, school parity has become law: private schools will have the same recognition as public educational institutions. It is an historic reform, finally passed by the House - la Camera - after fifty years of waiting. This definitive passage of the law on school parity, despite bitter contrasts, was nothing more than the end of a situation which has seen Italy being last in giving up the anti-church battle of the 18^th and 19^th centuries. France had previously been the last to resolve this question which had a different meaning in Germany and was practically unknown across the Atlantic. The main point of contention between the political parties was over subsidies for the private sector: opposition parties believed they were insufficient, while the others felt they were totally illegitimate. Private schools can now enter the national teaching system with full freedom of method and focus if they abide to the following regulations:

have an educational programme which conforms to basic Governmental regulations

are adequately equipped

establish school bodies

guarantee admission to whoever makes a request, including disabled children

have a teaching staff who conform to the national working contract

accept evaluation by the national service for the evaluation of education

Families of students in either public or private schools, if their income falls below a certain threshold, will be able to benefit from scholarships or tax breaks. State aid to private pre-schools and elementary schools will rise from 60 to 280 billion lire.

*Statistical information regarding Public and Private Schools for the academic year 1999/2000*
	Pupils attending Public Schools	Pupils attending Private Schools
Nursery Schools	901,264	460,000
Primary Schools	2,631,772	200,000
Lower Secondary	1,719,173	97,000
Higher Secondary	2,453,215

Approximately 100,000 teachers are employed in private schools in comparison to 760,000 in the public schools, although the latter figure does not include the thousands of teachers without a fixed contract.

Higher Education Reform

The main aim of the reform is to reorganise the academic system by transforming its over-centralised structure and giving administrative and academic autonomy to each university. An important criticism of the reform is that there is a distinct lack of provision made to enhance cooperation between industry and universities. Instead of focusing on the needs of professors, it is argued that universities should be concerned primarily with satisfying the needs of students, industry and society at large.

Recruitment reform. At present all posts are assigned through centralised, national exams, which has made it easy in the past for academic heads sitting on the commissions to share out the available posts on the basis of personal connections rather than merit. The draft law proposes that the concorsi should continue but that they should take the form of procedure di abilitazione. This means that they should be used only to establish whether candidates are sufficiently skilled in teaching and research to be considered for university professorships and associate professorships. Judging committees should include foreigners - a new concept in Italy - while scientific achievement would, for the first time, be assessed using indicators recognised by international scientific organisations. Universities would hire its own academics according to its own criteria, regulated only by a general frame of common, light rules.

Academic careers are to be reorganised with 'Professors' being divided into three categories: professors (with three grades), associate professors (with six grades) and trainee professors (currently researchers whose teaching role will finally be recognised).

Promotion will not be automatic, but rather performance linked on the basis of assessment carried out every four years by the university evaluation unit.

Professors should work for a total of around 1,500 hours per annum with the number of teaching hours being increased to 500 per year being made up of 120 hours teaching and 380 hours of student contact. Professors will only be able to perform consultancy or professional services with the approval of the Rector to ensure that there are no longer any clashes with their academic responsibilities.

A national committee for the evaluation of the university system will be created by MURST. It will be composed of 9 members, including renowned foreign experts from different disciplines with particular experience in monitoring and evaluating.

The four-year Italian university degree is shortly to undergo some very radical changes. It will be split as follows:

the first three-year degree will give a basic university education for anyone wishing to continue after the maturitŕ. It will be designed to prepare students for specific professional outlets, being practical rather than academic in nature. The degree will also provide training in at least one European language for all students irrespective of their course of study as well as competence in the use of computers. The syllabuses will be mainly national, although a much greater degree of autonomy will be given to the universities themselves
the second two-year degree, corresponding more or less to the UK's Masters degree, will provide specialisation for students wishing to complete their studies to a level more or less equivalent to the previous four-year degree. Only students completing this five-year cycle will be awarded the title dottore

The PhD level dottorato di ricerca will still exist, although there are plans to make this degree more readily available.

The workload required to obtain each degree will be expressed in credits, including work carried out individually, with the average workload per year being 60 credits (1 credit will represent approximately 25 hours of study). Credits will be obtained by passing an examination or another suitable form of assessment of the student's performance e.g. set reading, laboratory work etc. At least half of the annual credits are to be spent on individual learning activities. It will also be possible to obtain credits for certified professional skills and competencies accrued in other activities of post-secondary level. Each credit awarded will be in line with the ECTS, the European Credit Transfer System, so that modules will be automatically recognised throughout Europe. This could, one day, lead to a pan-European degree.

The first level should allow students to enter the labour market at the age of 22-23 in line with other European countries.

However academics are mounting an offensive against the legal status of Italian degrees as one of the basic obstacles to a radical renovation of the ailing state university system. They argue that if the value and significance of a degree is established by law, then all degrees are equal and there is no incentive for universities to compete for quality and prestige. The degree's legal status means it automatically gives access to certain job categories. This is a cast-iron system in the public sector, where no distinction can be made between degrees from a university known to be mediocre and easy and one known to be excellent and difficult. But the system can also apply in the private sector where national contracts are compulsory. A degree ensures, for instance, four years' seniority for pension benefits in many heavily unionised national contracts. Conversely, those without a degree are barred by law from many jobs, irrespective of their competence or the desires of their employers.

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