Stefano Tirati – EfVET Vice-President (Projects)/ National Representative of Italy

On 1st of February, as new EfVET Vice President, Stefano Tirati has visited INDIRE, the National Agency for the Innovation of the School System of the Italian Ministry of Education. During the first meeting, Maria Chiara Pettenati, Director of initial training for newly appointed teachers, has depicted the learning path developed by her team, consisting in both online educational activities as well as territorial workshops and in-school mentoring, as represented by the picture below. For further information on the new initial teacher training programmes: www.neoassunti.indire.it

 

New Italian legislation

According to the new Italian legislation, only those teachers and trainers who successfully complete this learning pathway may see their fixed term employment contract transformed into a permanent one. Maria Chiara and her team have been responsible to structure the learning process and monitor its implementation, achieving an extraordinary impact at national level. In only four years, from 2014 till 2018, around 185.000 newly employed teachers and trainers in Italy have accomplished their initial training. Indeed this represents a significant share of educational staff, whose total population in Italy is estimated in 750.000. This implies that a new generation of teachers is ready to take on board the challenge of innovating the Italian school system, in line with the Ministry objectives to invest in continuous training and upgrading infrastructure and equipment.

Several correlations and ground for cooperation have been highlighted also with regards to the objectives of the European Commission Digital Education Action Plan, which calls for enhanced efforts at all educational levels to foster digital competencies. The Digital Education Action Plan is closely linked to the new initiative of the Italian Ministry of Education Generazioni Connesse.

Italian Network of Higher VET

The second meeting, has offered the opportunity to present EfVET and #EfVET18 International Conference to the Italian Network of Higher VET, whose executive committee was gathering at INDIRE to present findings of the research aimed at updating the national qualifications. The Italian Network of Higher VET, “Istituti Tecnici Superiori” is composed by nearly one hundred Foundations spread across the country, each adopting a public-private partnership model and a similar governance disciplined by the Ministry of Education. Typically, ITS include VET providers, Businesses, Research Bodies, Local Authorities.

The members of the Network are grouped within professional families:

• Energy efficiency
• Sustainable mobility
• New life technologies
• New technologies for the Made in Italy
• Innovative technologies for creative and culture sector and tourism
• Information and communication technologies

Common grounds of cooperation between EfVET members and the Italian Network of Higher VET have been discussed, such as raising the profile and attractiveness of VET, implementing applied research on VET learners and innovating national curricula and qualifications.

This article was originally published on EfVET Magazine – March 2018 issue