Di LOMAGLIO Franco

ISMEDA Group

di LOMAGLIO Franco

Essay 2 ENGLISH

During the current parliamentary term, reform measures concerning both the first and second cycle of education were adopted according to statutory provisions of Law 53/2003.The overall reorganization of the educational system has beenapproved by the various "Regulations”,the Presidential Decree 89/2009 for the first cycle of education, together with the Presidential Decrees 87, 88 and 89 of 2010 relating respectively to vocational schools, technical institutes, to high schools.

The candidate will illustrate the context of Italian and European reference in which the aforesaid Regulations have been developed.

The education and training system of our country is divided into two cycles: the first and the second cycle which is sub divided into sectors and branches of study. Reform measures of the entire education and formation system originated with Law 53/2003, even if they contain, as regards the second cycle of education, traces of reform projects never fully approved or realised, as a result of the various changes in political majority and leadership that had developed structural and pedagogical changes in the upper secondary level.

The common principles, guidelines and recommendations agreed at the European level offer reference points for the design of national reforms. And Law 52/2003 reforming the overall education system has been enacted in the context of European reports and indications which recognized education and training as vectors of social advancement and personal growth of the individual on one hand and as basic instruments to increase the economic competitiveness, promote employment and improve social relations between individuals, on the other hand, i.e. tools to fight the more serious unemployment for the system, that of youth and of long duration. In defining the 2010 objectives and targets the European Commission aimed at developing lifelong education and training, taking into account the strategic link between the individual's employability, lifelong learning and sustainable and harmonious economic development. The European work program also intended to guide member states in adopting educational processes that promote key competences for democratic citizenship, in order to provide young people and adults with the necessary knowledge and competences to have an active role in society, respect for democratic institutions, act against violence and intolerance, in favor of social cohesion and the common good.

Indications of the European Union work program are now on the targets for 2020; they take into account the severe economic crisis that affects the whole of Europe and reaffirm the essential function of education and training, in formal as well in informal learning environments.In fact, growth is intelligent if it is based on knowledge and innovation, if it is inclusive and based on a high employment rate that promotes social cohesion.The values ​​and principles set by the EU for 2020 are therefore those who had accompanied the different resolutions to identify targets for 2010; as well the actions that should help EU members achieve the objectives mentioned above refer, for 2020, to the strengthening of lifelong education and training throughout life in order to acquire and develop the necessary competences needed for insertion in today’s labor market and achieving personal success in life.

If the reference context of Law 53/2003 and of the Regulations for the reorganization of the first and second cycle of education promulgated by the current legislature has no fundamental change, the key terms that should characterize a system of education, consistent with the principles and actions at European level are lifelong learning and quality education and training, acquisition and strengthening of competences aimed at personal development and at social and professional insertion, at the promotion of civic, cultural and ethical values. School systems should also overcome the dichotomy between knowledge and know-howsince the ultimate goal of any educational process and training is the acquisition of competences that represent all the theoretical, operational dimensions and personal skills used by the individual to perform autonomous choices in contexts he didn’t know before.It becomes even crucial to set an assessment system of student learning and a certification of competences acquired by them in connection with this learning, in accordance with the systems of certification of skills and competences acquired in non-school systems, given the same educational value of different learning environments and the possible transition from one system to another based on the personal baggage of acquired and certified competences.

In the reorganization Regulations, both the first and second educational cycles are didactically divided into periods corresponding to the different phases of the learning path: primary education is organized into a first year and two, two-year pedagogical periods; lower secondary school into a two-year period and a third year; finally the second cycle is organized into two, two-year periods and a final fifth year.Personalized study plans, in full respect of school autonomy, contain a basic homogeneous core of subjects, on national basis, and a section allocated to the regions regarding matters of local interest.

The pedagogical model of education present in the “National Guidelines for the curriculum” of the first cycle of education, Ministerial Decree of 31/07/2007, aims, in all levels, from kindergarten to primary and lower secondary schools, at, on the one hand, overcoming the fragmentation of knowledge and, on the other, at achieving the unity of the educational process in the first part of the compulsory school segment The enactment of paragraph 622 of Article 1 of Law 296/2006 has brought to the extension of compulsory schooling to 10 yearswhile the MD in application of the law, the Ministerial Decree 139/2007, has structured the learning pathway of the first two compulsory years of the second cycle of education into four cultural competence axes/areas and into output competences declined in reference to these axes/areas, and in harmony with key competences of citizenship on the basis of the European ones.

We can assert that the pathway of compulsory education is now fully regulated because a national model for certification of output competences, consistent with the EQF, has even been developed, with the MD 9/2010, in accordance with Article 4, paragraph 3, of the MD 139/2007.

The Legislative Decree 226/2005, associated with the changes caused by the extension of compulsory schooling and by the Ministerial Decree 139/2007 and also by Law 40/2007, is the foundation of the Regulations for the reorganization of the second cycle of education included in the Presidential Decrees 87, 88 , 89 of 2010. It contains general rules and the basic levels of student performance in the second cycle of the Education and Training system; this cycle is organized in different types of “licei” or high schools : art, classical, musical and choral, science, and humanities High Schools. The expected outcomes defined within the PECUP (Profilo Educativo, Culturale e Professionale), the educational, cultural and professional profile of the student at the end of the second cycle of education has been defined and articulated into competences either for high schools or for technical and vocational education. The second cycle pathway ends, for all sectors, with a final state exam which is a necessary qualification to access university, higher technical education or enter the labor market.

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