How school works in Italy

The Italian school system and how school works in Italy in general as of 2022, also from a student perspective.

info Note: In Italy, schools can be public (the state finances the economic needs of the structure) and private (you have to pay to attend those schools). Since I have no experience with private schools and they are not very common compared to public education, I won’t talk about them. The same goes for night school (scuola serale).

toc Table of contents

School in Italy is regulated by the MIUR, the Ministry of Education, University and Research. An overview of the school system in Italy is present in Eurydice (link), a network whose task is to explain how education systems are organized in Europe and how they work. In this post you’ll find a similar but more detailed explanation.

Compulsory school starts at age 6 and ends at age 16, but normally students attend school for more than 10 years (we’ll see how in a moment).

The Italian school system is divided into 5 stages¹.

A scheme of the Italian school system. Red numbers indicate compulsory school. Classes are written in Roman numbers.

1. Infanzia (pre-primary school)

Pre-primary school, called “scuola dell’infanzia” (literally “school of infancy”), “scuola materna” (maternal/infant school) in Italy, is not a compulsory school, but most parents enroll their children anyway. It’s the school that anticipates the first cycle of education, it’s free (the cost of the meal is borne by the family) and it generally takes place from 8:00 to 16:00.

The children’s age is from 2-3 to 5-6 years and infanzia has a duration of 3 years (“piccoli” section, “medi/mezzani” section and “grandi” section). In this school they learn to socialize, become more independent, express their creativity and respect the rules, all this through many group activities both indoors and outdoors every day.

There are national indications for the nursery school curriculum to define the learning objectives to be achieved throughout the three years of school, called Campi d’esperienza (fields of experience). They are the following:

• the self and the other (the big questions, the moral sense, living together);
• the body and movement (identity, autonomy, health);
• images, sounds and colors (gestures, art, music, multimedia);
• speeches and words (communication, language, culture);
• knowledge of the world (order, measure, space, time, nature).

info Note: What is taught in each public Italian school, from infancy to upper secondary school, is expressed in the PTOF (Piano Triennale dell’Offerta Formativa, or Triennial Plan of the Educational Offer), which is a document where the school in question reports the strategy with which it aims to pursue educational and training goals based on its own resources, both human, professional, territorial or economic. In other words, the PTOF reports all the intentions, ideas and projects that a school proposes over three years, whether they are educational, organizational, curricular or extra-curricular.

MIUR guidelines (🇮🇹)

Wikipedia (🇮🇹)

school Primary education

2. Scuola primaria (primary school)

Primary school, also called elementary school or kindergarten in other countries and “scuola primaria” or “scuola elementare” in Italy is the first compulsory school. It forms part, together with the lower secondary school, of the first cycle of education. Here students learn to write and read and they apprehend the first notions of a wide range of subjects (see the list below).

Scuola primaria starts at 6 years of age² and lasts 5 years.

How much time is spent daily by children in primary school can vary according to the prevalence of family choices and the availability of staff in the facility: every year parents are asked if they prefer to leave their child at school from 8:00 to 13:00 (the so-called normal/morning time, 29-30 hours from Monday to Saturday*Some schools on Saturday remove the last hour, remaining with 4 hours on that day. Others, as it was for my elementary school, alternate between 4 and 5 hours on Saturdays every week.) or until 16:00 (full time, 40 hours from Monday to Friday)*Exact time may vary..

Subjects taught

Every week, Italian students attend lessons on the following subjects:

• Italian (7-9 hours a week)
• English language (2-3 hours)
• History (2 hours)
• Geography (1-2 hours)
• Mathematics (6-8 hours)
• Science (2 hours)
• Music (1-2 hours)
• Art and image/Visual arts education
• Physical education (2 hours)
• Technology/ICT/Computer Science (1-2 hours)
• Religion (2 hours, not mandatory)

For a full-time day at school (8 hours a day), which seems to be the most common choice³, more hours are dedicated to some subjects, but they usually oscillate between the values I’ve written above. The number of hours for each subject is also dynamic and can change depending on the year: it can decrease or increase progressively depending on the importance of the subject and the MIUR guidelines. As you can see, the English language is taught since age 6. Also, being Italy a secular state (sort of), religion is optional and parents can choose if their child should instead do alternative activities during those hours in another classroom.

If you are curious to know exactly what is being taught to children in primary school, this is a table describing the (new) educational program of history, geography and science throughout all 5 years of elementary school, taken from Wikipedia*Of course, keep in mind that all programs can vary a little depending on the school, the teachers and the students.:

MIUR guidelines (🇮🇹)

Wikipedia (🇮🇹)

school Secondary education

3. Scuola secondaria di primo grado (lower secondary school)

Once completed scuola primaria, students move up without exams⁴ to “scuola secondaria” or “scuola media” (middle school), which starts at age 11 and lasts 3 years. It is attended for a little more than 200 days a year, not counting Sundays, from mid-September to the first days of June. This period of school has the purpose of solidifying and deepening the basics of the various subjects learned by students during elementary school, but it also adds new subjects like a secondary foreign language (usually French, German or Spanish).

The school time of lower secondary school ranges, on average, from a minimum of 29 hours to a maximum of 33 hours per week. The duration of each lesson is 60 minutes (5-6 hours every day) and lunch (in most schools) is eaten at home, not at school in the canteen. School days end roughly at 13:00 and about halfway through the morning there’s a break of 15 minutes where students can eat a snack, relax and socialize with friends and even with other people outside the classroom.

The classes of scuola media are usually made up of a minimum of 18 and a maximum of 27 students. If more, students are split into separate sections, e.g. 1A, 1B, 1C and so on. For example, I was in section A and there was another section, B, for the remaining students of my age.

Subjects taught

The subjects studied are:

• Italian (6 hours per week)
• History and Geography (with Citizenship and Constitution) (4 hours)
• Mathematics (4 hours)
• Science (2 hours)
• Technology and ICT (2 hours)
• English language (3 hours)
• Second foreign language (2 hours)
• Art and Image (2 hours)
• Music (2 hours)
• P.E. (2 hours)
• Catholic religion or alternative activity (1 hour)

For a real example, this was the schedule of my third year of scuola media (grammar and literature are part of Italian subject; I had French as my second foreign language, after English):

psychology_alt But what is Italian? In Italy we study Italian in all its facets: we analyze its grammar, we write essays to train our expression and argumentative skills, we read excerpts from Italian books and we study the Italian works and authors of the past (Dante Alighieri, Petrarca, Boccaccio, Leopardi, Manzoni, etc.). The enormous variety of what we study is the reason why we divide Italian into smaller categories, i.e. Anthology (excerpts from Italian literary works), Grammar and Literature.

At the end of the three years, students must take the esame di terza media (middle school exam), composed by:

• written Italian test (write an essay)
• written Math test
• written English and secondary language test
• oral test (“tesina”)

In particular, the Italian test has 3 types of “tracks” (tracce) to choose from:

1. Type A (narrative or descriptive text)
2. Type B (argumentative text)
3. Type C (synthesis and understanding of a text)

Once the students have chosen one of the tracks, they have 3-4 hours to finish the test.

Shortly after school is finished (it’s in the first days of June for most Italian regions), when for everyone else the holiday begins, the students of the third year have to take an oral test which consists of the presentation of a work (usually a slideshow or a short essay), called tesina, on a specific topic that must be connected to all (or most of) the studied subjects in front of all the teachers. If it sounds a bit intimidating, well, it is!

To give you an example, I chose environmental problems as the main topic, then I connected the subjects to the various topics learned during the previous years like so:

• Science: greenhouse effect
• Technology: renewable energies
• History: Second Industrial Revolution
• Religion: a speech by Pope Francis
• Geography: China’s pollution
• P.E.: outdoor sports
• Music: I played Elegy for the Artic (Greenpeace) by Ludovico Einaudi with my piano

I don’t know if it’s interesting, but I’ll share my complete tesina with you to show what an actual tesina would look like. Just keep in mind that I was 14 in 2019, so don’t expect anything too professional and accurate. Also, it’s in the Italian language of course (🇮🇹). Click the button to read and download it.

In the end, though, each student’s performance is evaluated considering their behavior and outcomes during the entire three-year period of middle school and relatively little importance is given to a presentation of 15 minutes or so.

explore Orientamento

During the third and last year, before the end of scuola media, students have some hours dedicated to a very important activity called “orientamento”, which translates to “orientation” or “orienting”. It is a sort of educational guidance that aims to help every student to decide what type of school (called indirizzo) they want to enroll in after finishing middle school.

During those hours, teachers orient students’ attention to different local upper secondary schools, they inform and suggest different choices in order to stimulate a decision process in the students’ mind and make them a little clearer about the optimal path for their future in school and in life. Orientamento doesn’t happen just inside the classroom: many upper secondary schools even organize a meeting on site to show (and sometimes convince) students that their school is the best choice.

info Note: If this doesn’t sound clear now, that’s because it’s strictly connected to the next section.

MIUR guidelines (🇮🇹)

Wikipedia (🇮🇹)

4. Scuola secondaria di secondo grado (upper secondary school)

After the esame di terza media, students and their families have to choose a new school, the upper secondary school, to attend for the next 5 years, from age 14 to 19, although from the age of 16 they have the possibility to abandon their studies (only the first two years of the second cycle of education are compulsory). Like middle school, it starts in mid-September and ends in the first days of June, leaving the summer free for students.

Upper secondary school is usually called “scuola superiore” or “superiori” for short and it’s somewhat comparable to high school in the USA and college in the UK. I made a comparison table between grades in these 3 countries to make it clearer:

Grade equivalents for American, Italian and English school systems.

I said that for students there is the possibility to choose which type of school (or institute) to enroll in, but what are the options?

There are 3 types of institutes, each united by a general area, with common disciplines such as Italian, History, English, Mathematics and Science but deferred by the specific set of skills that the student acquires in the five years. In short, every school is specialized in a certain topic, but the main disciplines are common to every type of school.

info Note: For translation reasons, I will use the word “institute” and “school” interchangeably. Remember that when I write “institute” I mean the same thing as with “school”.

The 3 types of schools are the following:

1. Liceo (lyceum)
2. Istituto tecnico (technical institute)
3. Istituto professionale (professional institute)

Each one is then subdivided into indirizzi, which are the many specializations of the school.

Before talking about each one specifically, though, it’s important to know a few more things.

Firstly, from a more psychological perspective, the transition from scuola media to scuola superiore is not taken lightly and is felt by Italian students as a big step both into the world of work and adulthood. When you finish scuola media, you leave all your mates, with whom you have been in close contact for three years and in many cases even more. You enter into a new classroom with new students, new teachers and a new atmosphere in a completely new place. The bewilderment disappears after the first few months, gradually leaving room for confidence, but still, going to superiori for the first time is exiting and awkward at the same time (at least this is what I felt in my experience).

Secondly, the 5 years of scuola superiore are actually divided into two section: a biennio (two-year period) and a triennio (three-year period). The difference is both in the total number of school hours per week and in the subjects taught. Biennio acts as an introductory phase for the basics of the chosen specialization, while a large amount of hours dedicated to the specialization will arrive only in the triennio. During biennio common subjects are prevalent, but from the third year onwards students will study more specific subjects and topics. For example, a student who chooses a Chemistry institute will study mostly the same subjects and roughly for the same amount of hours that s student of a Linguistic institute might have in the first 2 years, but then the student of chemistry will have a lot more chemistry-related subjects and topics to study as opposed to the linguistic student.

Thirdly, being students only 14 when they choose their high school, there’s the possibility to change to a different institute or indirizzo (which is the specialization) if the right choice hasn’t been made. This commonly happens towards the end of the second year (so the end of the biennio), but you can change school a year before or after, too (even if doing it in the third year is more complicated and not recommended).

Liceo

Liceo is, generally speaking, the hardest type of institute/school. It gives you a general and detailed education over a very broad range of topics but doesn’t prepare you enough for practical work. For that, you have to continue to university. It really makes you study a lot.

From the MIUR website:

“Liceo provides the student with the cultural and methodological tools for an in-depth understanding of reality, so that he can face situations, phenomena and problems with a rational, creative, planning and critical attitude, and acquire knowledge, skills and competences consistent with personal abilities and choices and adequate for the continuation of higher-level studies, integration into social life and the world of work.”

Each liceo has multiple indirizzi with a focus on a specific field of study. There are 6 specializations in total:

1. Liceo classico (humanities and antiquity, specialized in classical and humanistic cultures)
2. Liceo scientifico (mathematics and science, specialized in literary, humanistic and STEM subjects)
3. Liceo linguistico (foreign languages, specialized in teaching English and 2 other languages)
4. Liceo musicale e coreutico (specialized in music)
5. Liceo delle scienze umane (psychology and pedagogy, specialized in humanistic sciences)
6. Liceo artistico (fine arts, specialized in artistic education)

Traditional liceo scientifico further divides into two additional branches: opzione scienze applicate (only specialized in STEM) and sezione a indirizzo sportivo (specialized in sports but also economics and law).

Likewise, traditional liceo delle scienze umane has a version (or better, an option) called opzione economico-sociale that is still focused on humanistic sciences but characterized by a deeper study of law and economics, a second foreign language (in addition to English, which is required for any type of school in Italy) and no study of Latin.

Istituto professionale

Istituto professionale (professional/vocational institute) is kind of the opposite of liceo: it’s less theoretical and more practical and prepares students to work as soon as they have completed their studies (sometimes even sooner, as some schools offer a diploma after three years instead of five).

The indirizzi are the following:

1. agriculture, rural development, enhancement of local products and management of forest and mountain resources
2. commercial fishing and fish production
3. industry and craftsmanship for Made in Italy
4. maintenance and technical assistance
5. water management and environmental remediation
6. commercial services
7. food and wine and hotel hospitality
8. cultural and entertainment services
9. services for health and social assistance
10. auxiliary arts of the health professions: dental technician
11. Auxiliary arts of the health professions: optician

In this type of school, laboratory activity is prevalent, and practical education is very frequent.

Istituto tecnico

info Note: At the moment of writing, I’m going to start my fourth year of education in an istituto tecnico with a specialization in ICT/Computer Science. Having quite a lot of experience with this type of school, that’s the one I can give you more information.

Istituto tecnico (technical institute) is a compromise between the liceo and the professional school: it offers both a wide theoretical education and a practical specialization in a specific field of study.

Indirizzi of technical institutes are divided into 2 sectors, economic and technological, further divided into the following specializations:

1. Economic sector
   1. Amministrazione, Finanza e Marketing (Administration, finance and marketing): to understand the business, insurance and financial world: the activities of companies, how to manage production, how to promote products.
   2. Turismo (Tourism): to enter the tourist services sector, learn how to enhance the artistic and landscape heritage, enhance the specificities of the different territories.
2. Technological sector
   1. Meccanica, Meccatronica ed Energia (Mechanics, Mechatronics and Energy): it aims to train professionals able to design and build mechanical and electromechanical systems. All in compliance with industry regulations.
   2. Trasporti e Logistica (Transportation and Logistics): it allows you to deepen the construction and management of naval, land and air transport systems, in compliance with national, EU and international standards.
   3. Elettronica ed Elettrotecnica (Electronics and Electrical Engineering): it teaches to understand the fields of electronics, robotics applied to production processes and industrial automation.
   4. Informatica e Telecomunicazioni (ICT)*I attend this indirizzo: to enter the world of communications and information technology, understand the rules that govern it and the technologies used.
   5. Grafica e Comunicazione (Graphics and Communication): to enter the world of personal and mass communication and understand how it develops through graphics, multimedia languages ​​and new technologies.
   6. Chimica, Materiali e Biotecnologie (Chemistry, Materials and Biotechnology): to learn how to manage the chemical-biological processes to be adopted in the research, pharmaceutical, food, environmental, dyeing and leather treatment sectors. With a focus on environmental protection and health.
   7. Sistema Moda (Fashion system): it trains professionals in the fashion industry to conceive, design, manufacture and promote textile, clothing and footwear products.
   8. Agraria, Agroalimentare e Agroindustria (Agriculture, Agribusiness and Agro-industry): it teaches how to manage the production and transformation processes of agricultural, agri-food and agro-industrial products, combining tradition and technological innovation.
   9. Costruzioni, Ambiente e Territorio (Construction, Environment and Territory): it prepares those who want to enter the field of building, construction, environmental protection and safety in the workplace.

In the istituto tecnico I’m currently attending, specializing in Information and Communication Technologies, the first 2 years barely scratched the surface of that field, giving to ICT the same amount of hours dedicated to chemistry and physics.

Check this table:

* Hours of laboratory activity.

These are the weekly hours for all the subjects in each of the 5 years, taken from my indirizzo, ICT. This schedule is a good example to confirm the fact that biennio is similar in all types of schools and gives students a general knowledge of all subjects, but leaves specialization to the following triennio.

In any case, it’s important to note that whether a technical or professional institute or a lyceum is chosen, graduate students of upper secondary schools can access any degree course or university diploma without restrictions.

Enrollment

This is a chart based on the school enrollment data for the school year 2022/2023 taken from the MIUR press release of February 2022⁵:

As you can see, licei, with their different indirizzi, remain in the lead in the preferences of Italian students, followed by istituti tecnici and istituti professionali.

If we look further at the percentages of the indirizzi for every single type of school, we see the following percentages.

For liceo:

For istituto tecnico:

Credits and final exam

During the last three years of scuola superiore, students can receive a limited number of bonus points called crediti scolastici (school credits) based on grades and behavior. The better is their performance, the more credits they get.

report_problem Warning: There were actually two types of credits: school credits (crediti scolastici) and formative credits (crediti formativi), but after 2017 (art. 15 and 26 comma 6 d.lgs. 62/2017, permalink) the latter have been repealed and do not exist anymore in upper secondary school. The difference between school credits and formative credits was that the first were (and still are) based on the student’s performance while the latter were assigned according to extracurricular activities attended by the student outside regular school lessons.

At the end of superiori, student must take a final exam, the exam of maturity (or graduation exam, called Esame di Stato or Esame di maturità in Italian), which is composed of 2 written tests (one in Italian and one on the subject of the indirizzo/specialization) and 1 oral examination⁶. The credits they have collected over the years add up to the final score.

The maximum grade is 100, the minimum to pass the exam is 60. As of 2022, the two written tests and the oral interview are evaluated up to a maximum of 50 points in total (15 for the first written test + 10 for the second + 15 for the oral test = 50), while the maximum score deriving from the credits is 50 (50 + 50 = 100).

In other years, the final evaluation is calculated as follows:

• first test: maximum 20 points
• second test: maximum 20 points
• interview: maximum 20 points
• school credit: maximum 40 points

From MIUR and Gazzetta Ufficiale.

This table above is the traditional credit table for a maximum of 40 credits (12+13+15). In some years (like this one), the maximum number of credits can rise up to 50 and in that case a conversion table is used to convert the credits in base 40 to base 50:

report_problem Warning: The credit system is very dynamic and often changes from year to year. That’s why you may be confused by the 40-50 base conversion. Take these credit tables as just examples of how the credit system works, but not as official and working content.

Tests

Tests have the purpose of evaluating students’ knowledge and understanding. They are usually very frequent and every teacher of every subject has to do a certain number of tests per period based on how many hours they have per week and the nature of their subject.

Tests can be of 3 types, all equally important:

1. written (when it requires the student to use the pen)
2. oral (when the test requires the student to speak to the teacher or to the class)
3. practical (when it evaluates the execution of experiments at the laboratory, programming at the computer, technical design, drawings, etc.)

After the tests are evaluated, students get a grade usually ranging from 2 to 10 (more on that later).

Where do students see their grades?

Since scuola media, an online school register, called registro elettronico, is used to write down and organize grades for each subject. This way, parents can see whenever they want their children's academic performance.

Starting from superiori, students gain access to the register, too, and it starts to be more and more important: it not only contains grades but also information on homework, tests, important communications, number of absences at school, meetings with teachers and much more. It becomes essential for the students.

The most common online register used in upper secondary schools in Italy is called ClasseViva by Spaggiari. It's available both on the web and by installing a dedicated app on the smartphone. It's the one that my school uses, too, and it looks something like this:

The ClasseViva school register with its UI and features (with translation).

School governance organization and representation

Scuola superiore has a very articulated internal organization, regulated by an important law promulgated on 16 April 1994: the legislative decree 297/94, in Italian “Decreto Legislativo 297/94 - Testo Unico delle disposizioni legislative in materia di istruzione, relative alle scuole di ogni ordine e grado”.

The complete text is available in the Official Gazette (Journal) of the Italian Republic (permalink). We are interested in sections 1 and 2, from articles 5 to 15.

This law essentially establishes how the education system works in Italy and defines the collegial bodies of the school, in Italian organi collegiali della scuola, which are governing and management bodies of schools at the territorial and single school levels. They represent the different school components, i.e. teachers, students and parents, and each of them has a specific role.

The collegial bodies of previous schools are:

• Consiglio di intersezione (intersection council), for infanzia school, composed of all the teachers and a representative of the parents for each of the sections concerned, plus the headmaster or a teacher delegated by him presides.
• Consiglio di interclasse (interclass council), for primary/elementary school, composed like before of all the teachers and a representative of the parents for each of the sections concerned, plus the headmaster or a teacher, who is part of the council, delegated by him, presides.
• Consiglio di classe (class council) of lower secondary school, composed of all the teachers of the class and 4 parent representatives, plus the headmaster.

For superiori (upper secondary schools) these are the collegial bodies, their composition and their role:

That’s not all: there are many other councils, commissions and groups in the Italian school system. For example, if we go beyond of the scope of the individual school, two students for each school of every province*An area in which each region of Italy is subdivided can take part with a two-year mandate (after being elected by the other students) to the so-called consulta provinciale degli studenti* (provincial student council) where they can represent students, coordinate projects and formulate proposals in collaboration with other schools at a provincial and regional level but eventually even nationwide⁷.

Since it can get complicated very quickly and it’s not particularly relevant to this post, I’m not going into much detail. For those who are interested, a more comprehensive explanation of the levels of student representation and the hierarchy of these bodies can be found on spazioconsulte.it website.

Let’s focus on the local scope of upper secondary schools/superiori.

Class organization

Students of superiori have much more representation and influence on the system if we take into comparison middle and primary school. As you have seen, there are class representatives to make that happen, but what do they do exactly? Having been a class representative for the last 3 years, I can explain their election and duties in detail.

Every year, each class of every upper secondary school has to choose 2 class representatives that will act as spokespersons for the students’ voice and will help manage student-teacher communication. They work with their classmates to resolve problems, inform teachers and in rare cases the headmaster of ideas and problems emanating from the class, have the responsibility of leading class meetings called assemblee di classe and sometimes even work together with teachers to organize student activities, projects and events.

One day, usually between October and November, an hour is dedicated to the election process. Class representatives are elected by a constituency made up of all students of the class. Each student writes his vote on a special sheet, choosing one of his classmates whom he deems most suitable for the role. When all the votes have been collected, they are counted and the two students who have obtained the highest number of votes become class representatives. That day, a vote takes place for the renewal of student representatives in the consiglio d’istituto (institute council), too.

After being elected, class representatives should do, usually two times a year (school year), a class assembly (in Italian assemblea di classe), which is a period of roughly an hour, not more than two, when the teacher exits the classroom and students talk to their class representatives about eventual problems they have, suggestions that have to make or other things that class representatives have to write down (of course those problems must concern the class in general and never a single student). Class assembly is not mandatory to do, but always recommended, especially if the class has some problems to report.

Two (but sometimes three or more) times a year the two class representatives have to participate in the consiglio di classe (class or student council) together with all teachers and two parent representatives, where they report the problems that came out during the class assembly. The teachers, instead, inform class representatives about the overall class trend, warn about insufficiencies, organize and if requested modify the planning of the lessons, of the tests and the study load, and talk about projects and school trips.

Students organization

Assemblea di classe is one of the two student assemblies (assemblee studentesche). The other one is called assemblea d’istituto, which can last a whole school day and is a moment when all the students come together to discuss the school situation according to a defined program. It’s chaired by the “rappresentanti d’istituto” or “rappresentanti degli studenti” (literally translated as “student representatives” and quite equivalent to the student government president for other countries).

info Note: If you are confused by all these similar but different names, I get it. Me and my classmates were initially confused, too.

In the assemblea d’istituto (which can take place a maximum of 4 times a year) is also possible to request the participation of experts in social, cultural, artistic and scientific problems, indicated by the students together with the topics to be included in the agenda. Such participation must be authorized by the institute council.

Every student (alone or in a group) from the third year onwards*Technically there isn’t a age limit, but usually no one applies for school/student representation in the first two years can run for student representative. There are 3 (for schools with less than 500 total students) or 4 (500 or more) candidates to elect.

Future student representatives usually form different groups (forming an electoral roll/list) or run individually and then each of them during the assemblea d’istituto makes a speech in front of all the students setting out objectives, intentions and proposals for the school year in question.

Before the elections, it is allowed to hang bills and posters but also to distribute leaflets and brochures and use other means of electoral propaganda in the school to spread the ideas of each roll among the students. All this usually happens in October in conjunction with the election of class candidates.

PCTO

Since 2003, to facilitate the acquisition of professional work/job experience while still in school, all types of upper secondary school (licei, istituti tecnici and istituti professionali) have introduced a new teaching methodology called PCTO.

PCTO is an acronym for “Percorsi per le Competenze Trasversali e l’Orientamento” (previously called “alternanza scuola-lavoro”) and it consists in one or multiple short-term internships in a company, association or another body (whether public or private) that can happen from the third to the fifth and last year of study. Also some extra-curricular activities different from internships count as PCTO (like afternoon courses).

An equivalent of PCTO would be known as cooperative education, work-integrated learning or experiential learning in other countries.

It is mandatory to reach a certain minimum number of total hours of PCTO (in all 3 years combined) which varies for each school type:

• 90 hours for licei
• 150 hours for istituti tecnici
• 210 hours for istituti professionali

Generally, there is no form of remuneration or reimbursement of expenses. PCTO projects can be carried out both during the school year, during class hours or in the afternoon, and during vacation periods.

More detailed information about PCTO can be found here.

Other school differences

• In Italy, starting from elementary school, students are assigned a class that belongs to a fixed classroom in the school and it’s given a name to identify it (usually a combination of the number of the school year and a letter, like 1A, 3C, 2B, etc.).
• This is important because it also highlights an important difference with other school systems around the globe (like in the UK and the US, for example), which is that teachers change classrooms every next hour (or couple of hours), while students (almost) always remain in the same classroom and don’t move from one to the other. There’s no classroom for specific school subjects (for that there are laboratories), but every classroom is almost identical and used for all subjects.
• Also, since students choose an indirizzo (for example a specialization/ in Chemistry, ICT, Fine Arts, etc.) when they enroll in scuola superiore, the study plan is already established and students can’t customize it, unlike, for example, high school in the US. There are no “core” subjects (mandatory) and “elective” subjects (optional): every hour of every subject established in that school indirizzo is mandatory, from the first to the fifth year.
• As of 2022, classes can be quite numerous in terms of number of students in the classroom. For lower secondary schools, classes can reach a maximum of 26 students. For upper secondary school, classes cannot exceed 27⁸.
• Unlike in other countries, in Italy schools don’t divide students based on their competence level, but mix students of various capabilities. This has the advantage of stimulating those who are not good enough to try harder to compete with others, but at the same time, it often causes discouragement of the less capable students who cannot keep up with the class and often fall behind. This is also part of the reason why grade retention/repetition is so common in Italy.
• In most Italian schools, unlike in may other countries, textbooks are not free. Every year students have to buy them since they are not provided by the school. There are libraries where you can consult books, donate them and borrow them, but they are not school textbooks and you cannot borrow them for the entire school year.

If you know Italian, the Italian journalist Francesco Costa has made a quite comprehensive video explaining the differences between the Italian and the American school system:

Come funziona la SCUOLA in America - Costa racconta

Evaluation and grading system

Since primary school, every student receives at the end of the year or the end of a certain period an evaluation of his “performance” at school. This periodic evaluation is expressed in the pagella (or scheda di valutazione, evaluation form), a document which summarizes the academic results of students, for single subjects and overall, with or without numbers.

School is usually divided in two sections, or semesters:

• two four-month periods (each one called quadrimestre)
• a four-month period + a five-month period (pentamestre)
• a two-month period + a six-month period/semester (bimestre + semestre).

At the end of the first section, all students receive an evaluation limited to that first period. At the end of the year, they receive a pagella with evaluations that consider the second section but also the entire school year.

Another less common approach is to divide the school year into three trimesters (three-month periods, each called a trimestre).

For primary school, grades are all non-numeric and are 4:

• In via di prima acquisizione (in the process of first acquisition): the pupil completes tasks only in known situations and only with the support of the teacher and resources provided specifically.
• Base: the pupil completes tasks only in known situations and using the resources provided by the teacher, both autonomously but discontinuously, and not autonomously, but continuously.
• Intermedio (intermediate): the pupil completes tasks in known situations autonomously and continuously; solves tasks in unknown situations, using the resources provided by the teacher or found elsewhere, even if in a discontinuous and not completely autonomous way.
• Avanzato (advanced): the pupil completes tasks in known and unknown situations, mobilizing a variety of resources both provided by the teacher and found elsewhere, independently and continuously.

For superiori, grades can be non-numeric values for subjects like religion and to express a very low value (“not classifiable”, NC for short, equivalent to a very serious insufficiency*Practically 0) or, for all the other cases, numbers ranging from 2 to 10*Even if technically they are from 1 to 10, numbers lower than 2 are very, very rarely used for grades. 6 is the threshold of sufficiency, meaning that you must stay above that mark on average to be sufficient in a subject and ultimately pass the school.

Grades in non-numeric form and their equivalents.

Students with many insufficient grades/marks in one or more subjects have to do a thing called recupero (recovery), meaning that they have to study again some topics and take a new test to attempt to improve and recover their previous low results. Recupero can happen individually or with the help of the teacher during the school year or the holiday.

Very important in the pagella is also the evaluation of the conduct of a student. Everything is established in the “Statute of students of secondary school”, by the “Educational Co-responsibility Agreement”, signed by students and families at the time of enrollment, and in the regulations of each school⁹.

MIUR guidelines (🇮🇹)

Wikipedia (🇮🇹)

D. Lgs. 297/94 article 191 (🇮🇹)

Spazio Consulte - La Rappresentanza a Scuola (🇮🇹)

Evaluation - MIUR (🇮🇹)

Vacations

Every year, all students of every age and school have two weeks of vacation from December 24 to January 7 for the Christmas holidays, about a week during Easter and three months from min-June to mid-September for the Summer holidays. There are also other free days during the year for special events such as Halloween, Carnival, Italian Republic Day and a few others.

school Higher education

5. Università

If students pass the final exam, they’ll receive a degree of maturity (diploma di maturità) that will allow them to have access to university (università in Italian).

info Note: This section is incomplete and consists of just a general overview. For more specific details, check the links provided below.

University is divided into three cycles:

1. First cycle: is made up of first level degree courses and leads to the “laurea triennale”. As its name suggest, it lasts 3 years. There’s a wide and diverse selection of Italian universities like:
   1. scientific departments (Mathematics, Physics, Astrophysics, Chemistry…)
   2. humanities faculty (Literatures, Philosophy, Foreign Languages, Cultural Heritage…)
   3. technical faculties (Architecture, Engineering, Economy…)
2. Second cycle: includes master’s degree courses that leads to the “laurea magistrale” or “specialistica” (second level degree). It usually lasts 2 years and it’s the continuation of the first cycle to ensure the students a higher level of specialization. However, there are some courses (Faculty of law, Faculty of Pharmacy, Construction Engineering, Architecture etc) that last 5 years (6 years as regards Med School) and take the name of “Corsi di Laurea a ciclo unico” (Single Cycle Degree Course)
3. Third cycle: it includes:
   1. master: they’re usually short courses of study that offer the opportunity (to those who are interested) to deepen some specific aspects of the subject studied during the first two cycles.
   2. specialization schools: they provide knowledge and skills to carry out highly qualified professional activities, particularly in the field of medical, clinical and surgical specialties. The duration of the studies varies from 2 to 6 years.
   3. doctoral degrees (Ph.D. or PhD): they’re theoretical courses, that are perfect for those who desire a career in the academic field or in the field of research. The PhD student must prepare an original research thesis and discuss it during a final exam.

Almost all universities are State-owned and jointly funded by the State and, to a lesser extent, by students through university fees. Some scholarships are available for particularly deserving students and/or from low-income families.

Wikipedia - Higher education in Italy Wikipedia - Education in Italy (Summary table)

speaker_notes Footnotes:

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