Rita Festi is a project development manager in VET at Scuola Centrale Formazione – ETS (SCF), one of the largest Italian network organisations bringing together VET providers and training centres across the country. Based in Bologna, she supports SCF members by designing and running national and European projects, coordinating working groups and pilot actions, and keeping partnerships moving in both Italian and international settings.
Before joining SCF in 2005, Rita worked at CEFAL Emilia Romagna (a SCF’s member), where she was responsible for international activities and coordinated cooperation and training projects funded through EU programmes such as Tempus in Romania and Albania, Leonardo da Vinci and Equal. Her academic background is in conference interpreting and translation (English and French).
At SCF she is involved in several long-running initiatives within Erasmus+ and related frameworks, such as COVEs, Sector Alliance, CB VET projects on the one hand and pilot initiatives and research-actions (i.e. on IVET learners’ key competences as well as IVET teachers’ strategic competences, implementing the dual system in Italy, introducing the national evaluation system into VET, etc.). Alongside project work, she represents SCF in sector networks, including a deputy representative role in EfVET’s Italian board and a board position in Consorzio OPEN.
Her work sits in that practical space where policy ideas, training needs and real schools have to line up—so a lot of her time goes into building workable project structures, keeping partners aligned, and translating broad priorities (innovation, inclusion, mobility, competence development) into activities that can actually be delivered on the ground.
