Italian secondary school

Italian Secondary School

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Italian Secondary school: Lower secondary school
From 11 to 14 years Italian students have to attend lower secondary school –middle school (scuola media) – a sort of bridge between elementary education and higher education (college or university) - which lasts three year. The training ends with a standard examination which consists of written tests in Italian as well as exams in science, maths and a foreign language. There is also an oral exam for all subjects except for religion. At the end students take a lower secondary school diploma and can move to upper secondary school. Attendance is compulsory and the student’s achievements and behaviour is observed by teachers and noted on a personal report.
As regards weekly school timetable it includes a maximum of 33 hours. Subjects are the following: Italian (7 hours), history (2 hours), geography (2 hours), mathematics (4 hours), science (2 hours), technology (2 hours), English (3 hours), a second European language (3 hours), art education (2 hours), music (2 hours), physical education (2 hours), religion or an alternative activity (1 hour). Finally students may chose among optional laboratory work hours for a maximum of 4 hours.

Italian secondary school: Upper secondary school
A recent reform (18th December 2008) in the Italian school system has been proposed by the minister of the Department for Education Mariastella Gelmini. It should be approved in 2009 and be enforced in 2010/2011 school year. Upper secondary education will include: secondary school focusing on humanities – scientific teaching and foreign languages will be improved, secondary school focusing on sciences, polarizing on sciences, language high school – studying three languages from the first year , Human Sciences School – with an emphasis on sociology, psychology and pedagogy, music school – focusing on music, singing and dance, art school –distinguished in three main courses (design, new media and figurative), technical schools – focusing on economics or technology.

At present the traditonal secondary schools last five years, when students are 19. At the end there is an examination with a board of examiners composed of three external members and three internal members. The president is external. Students passing the final examination then have access to all types of university and higher education courses.

The secondary school focusing on humanities has a classical bias: general culture, the study of Latin and Ancient Greek, history and philosophy are the main subjects. A secondary school focusing on sciences aims to develop and deepen scientific and mathematical topics, such as geometry, calculus, biology, chemistry or physics.
Language high school gives a great importance to language learning processes, usually three European languages are studied (English, French, Spanish or German).

Art school focuses on visual arts and connected expressive means and forms: a five year course and programmes which include history of art and architecture and the study of painting, sculputure, decoration and scenography. After taking the diploma you may enter an academy of Fine Arts or a university of architecture.
Technical schools focuse on practical subjects such as business administration, information technology, chemistry and subjects related to technical and administrative skills in the agricultural, industrial and commercial fields. The final diploma gives access to any university course.

Vocational schools are more oriented to prepare students to enter the job market: they prefer practical subjects, in order to qualify the students to start searching for a job as soon as they have finished to attend school.

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