ETEW – Education, Training, Employment and Work in Italy for the younger generation: present challenges for the future

Speakers
Federico Butera (University of Milan-Bicocca and Rome Sapienza, Foundation IRSO): New skills for new jobs. The case of ITS (Istituti Tecnici Superiori)
Laura Formenti (University of Milan-Bicocca): From school-to-work alternation to PCTO: is the narrative changing?
Marino Regini (University of Milan): Higher education and employment in Italy: The economic and institutional bases of skill mismatch

Chair: Gabriele Pinna (University of Cagliari)

Date and hour: Friday, June 4 – 3.45 pm-5.00 pm (go to the Conference program)

Over the years, the relations between education, employment, and work have been a source of public and political debate in Italy. Insufficient policy and fragmented interventions have left many contradictions open.

According to national and international data on the employment of graduates, Italy sits among the most critical positions of the European rankings. Young people with diplomas and degrees often find it difficult to access suitable job positions, and those with fewer qualifications face even greater struggles. Both the employment rate of university graduates after n-year from graduation and the salary premium to a tertiary degree are far lower than in most EU countries. Moreover, the occupational outcomes of PhD holders are especially unsatisfactory. Both economic factors on the demand side and institutional factors on the supply side can be examined to explain this contradiction.

Furthermore, it is necessary to reflect on the strengthening of the relation between professional systems and school education system in all sectors as a key factor in overcoming the historical delays of the Italian economy and society. Regarding this, several policy actions have addressed the relation between education and work in recent years in Italy. Indeed, recent policy initiatives aimed at reinforcing the relation between school and the skills for the jobs of the future: 1) creating a post-diploma education chain called ITS (Higher Technical Education) devoted to the formation of skills for future jobs; 2) strengthening the relation between education and skills for work (ASL and PCTO).

This symposium aims at discussing these complex relations between education and work system in Italy. These issues will be discussed with the help of three prestigious experts who have followed these debates in Italy and at the international level, each one from a different point of view.

Keywords: education, employment, work

Financial Education: Considerations for developing and improving Financial Literacy in young people

Speakers: Anna Maria Ajello (Istituto Nazionale per la Valutazione del Sistema d’Istruzione); Emanuela E. Rinaldi (University Milano Bicocca); Arto Ahonen (Finnish Insitute for Educational Research); Magda Bianco (Banca d’Italia); Giovanna Boggio Robutti (Fondazione per l’Educazione Finanziaria e al Risparmio); Carlo Di Chiacchio (Istituto Nazionale per la Valutazione del Sistema d’Istruzione); Paolo Legrenzi (Università di Venezia Ca’ Foscari)

Date and hour: Thursday, June 3, 2021 – 12.00 pm-1.15 pm (go to the Conference program)

It is now well acknowledged that Financial Literacy has to be considered a life skill individuals at different ages need to develop and improve.

The development of good Financial Literacy starts at early ages just from family experiences. However, in some cases family can be misleading and promote wrong financial behaviours and attitudes. For this reason, schools play an important role in delivering the right information and instruction as to shape, hopefully, future safe behaviours and attitudes about money, spending and saving. Information, instruction and advice are, in fact, the key points that in 2005 already the OCED pointed out in its recommendations for the good practices of Financial Education.

Since then, countries, governments, public and private institutions have been focussing their attention on this issue promoting and developing Financial Education programs, national policies and guidelines, as well as evaluation strategies. The most important examples of this awareness at the international level are the PISA large scale assessment on Financial Literacy – in 2022 will be the fourth cycle of the survey – and the 2020 OECD Recommendation of the Council on Financial Literacy.

PISA results have been showing that in many of the participating countries – Italy has been participating since the first edition of 2012 – adolescents have a low level of Financial Literacy. So, it is necessary to put more effort to address the new challenges and disentangle what is behind them.

Based on the background above, this symposium aims to raise a discussion on two main questions: how is the state of the art of the policies regarding the implementation and provision of Financial Education programs, especially at schools? What pitfalls may play, at the individual level, an important role in preventing the development of good Financial Literacy over and beyond test scores?

Keywords: Financial Education, Financial Literacy, Youth, Financial Education Programs, Schools

🇮🇹 Reinventare il sistema dell’istruzione italiano

Relatori: Antonello Giannelli (Presidente ANP); Giovanni Brugnoli (Vicepresidente per il Capitale Umano Confindustria); Angela Nava (Presidente Forum Associazioni Genitori); Giorgio Vittadini (Università Milano Bicocca, presidente della Fondazione per la Sussidiarietà)

Data e ora: venerdì 4 giugno 2021 – 15.45-17.00 (vai al programma della Conferenza)

In linea col tema generale della seconda Conferenza Internazionale delle rivista Scuola Democratica, ANP – l’associazione maggiormente rappresentativa dei dirigenti scolastici delle scuole di ogni ordine e grado, che associa anche i dirigenti tecnici e migliaia di docenti – intende discutere le linee fondamentali di un ridisegno del sistema dell’istruzione italiano che sappia cogliere le opportunità offerte dagli investimenti del Next Generation EU e le spinte innovative già presenti al suo interno. I tempi sono maturi per superare quegli aspetti organizzativi e ordinamentali che ingessano l’autonomia scolastica e non consentono di realizzare un sistema realmente equo e in grado di creare occasioni di promozione sociale. Si discuterà da più punti di vista di un Progetto di innovazione che introducendo flessibilità e adeguate risorse umane e strumentali consenta di realizzare percorsi formativi in grado di rispondere alle esigenze di pieno sviluppo del capitale umano e di rilancio economico e sociale del nostro Paese. Molte le leve sulle quali è indispensabile agire in fretta e che verranno discusse: formazione continua del personale, nuove prassi didattiche, digitalizzazione, nuove modalità di reclutamento decentrate e basate sul possesso di competenze aggiornate, valutazione delle performance organizzativa e individuale, middle management, responsabilità datoriale.

Parole chiave: scuola, didattica, organizzazione, valutazione, performance, equità, management, leadership, digitalizzazione

The INAPP survey on the assessment of key skills in the Vocational Education and Training

Speakers: Anna D’Arcangelo (INAPP); Emmanuele Crispolti (INAPP); Andrea Giacomantonio (University of Parma); Rita Festi (Scuola Centrale di Formazione)

Date and hour: Friday, June 4, 2021 – 3.45 pm-5.00 pm (go to the Conference program)

The INAPP survey on the assessment of key skills in the Vocational Education and Training general objective is to  improve the key skills of educational and vocational training (IeFP) learners, within the framework of a

modernization of a training offer which, in the coming years, aims decisively at a greater adherence to the demands of the labour market and its key players, contributing to the prevention of training failure and early leaving, through the implementation of operational devices and tools useful for the development of the effectiveness of the IeFP. The overall objective of the study is based on two lines of action, which constitutes the specific objectives of the survey:

  • to define and test a device for the assessment of 4 specific European key skills (Learning to Learn, Social and Civic Skills, Spirit of Initiative and Entrepreneurship, Cultural Awareness and Expression) in IeFP;
  • to carry out a survey of the best and most significant Italian and European practices concerning competence-based training pathways dedicated to the 4 key skills

In operational terms, the research activity on the demand side has fore

  • the preparation of a device – model, procedures, indicators, descriptors and tools – to test the level of mastery of the 4 key skills – taking into account their declination in the national context (the Key Competencies for Citizenship) and the relations with IeFP (basic and technical-professional) training standards;
  • 4 pre-training and post-training tests administrations – addressed to 1300 learners enrolled in the first IeFP year  – of a total of 10,000  assessment tests.

The reference population is made up of those enrolled in the first year of the IeFP courses provided by the accredited training agencies (CFP) in the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 training years. To date, the first 3 scheduled administrations have been completed.

On the second side, that of the offer, we proceeded to analyze with which  paradigms and methods,  the teaching/learning process of the 4  key skills of interest is designed and organized. In this sense, an analysis of good practices  in Italy and Europe was carried out, through:

  • a survey of the training curricula offered by accredited training agencies in the IeFP, highlighting modules and teaching units composed and assessed in the logic of the competence based approach and provided by adopting innovative teaching methodologies;
  • the identification and analysis of relevant European practices and experiences in this field.

Keywords: Educational and vocational training, Assessment, Key skills, Soft skills

What remains of education? The emergence of a hybrid system

Speakers: Miguel Benasayag; Lorenzo Benussi (Fondazione per la Scuola della Compagnia di San Paolo); Paolo Bianchini (University of Turin); Marta Encinas-Martin (OECD); Andrea Maccarini (University of Padua); Cecilia Waismann (MindCET)

Date and hour: Thursday, June 3, 2021 – 12.00 pm-1.15 pm (go to the Conference program)

The COVID-19 crisis and the school closures it made necessary have worsened and made more visible many deep problems which had characterized our education system since before the pandemic, in particular around educational inequality. At the same time, the strategies which teachers and students developed to adapt to this new paradigm, autonomously and with government guidance, have shown that schools have the capacity for radical change, often through the development of hybrid and innovative solutions.
Educational institutions are often portrayed as being remarkably resistant to change. The rapid response required and stimulated by the current crisis is leading to the emergence of practices, models and trends which deserve to be documented and researched, as they could represent the foundations for a new and better educational system. These emergent practices are often hybrid in nature, in the sense that they resist categorization under the traditional dichotomies which defined the pre-COVID educational debate.
To explore these themes, Fondazione per la Scuola della Compagnia di San Paolo will host a symposium divided into three conversations, each aiming to move beyond one of the following dichotomies, as follows: teacher / educator, hard / soft skills, digital / analog.
Guest speakers invited by Fondazione per la Scuola will examine emergent hybrid educational practices with a focus on those which could represent an alternative to the simplistic juxtaposition between pre-COVID, in person learning, and remote learning. This juxtaposition often doesn’t take into account the chronic failing of our pre-COVD system, nor the virtuous practices which emerged under remote learning and which may represent a starting point for the redesign of our educational system

Keywords: Innovation, Covid-19, educational system