What do students in Italy really think?
From 14th April to 4th May Unione degli Studenti (UdS) conducted a national student consultation together with Link, the university students association of Italy. In total 98,251 students voted in their schools and universities and raised their voice by answering to the 7 questions proposed in the survey.
The topics were: student concerns about the future, school and university management and democracy in places of learning, students’ welfare and basic income, right to study, vocational education and training and internships, access to education and evaluation and assessment.
The main reason for which UdS felt the need to ask students their opinions was to examine the idea of changing the existing way of establishing policies in education. At the moment, the decision-makers shaping education policies leave those who are affected by the decisions taken in their everyday life, students and teachers, outside of the decision-making process. Students are not taken into consideration, but are affected by the policies without having the chance to raise their voice and actively take part in what should be a democratic process.
Here are questions, answers and percentages:
| Question n.1 – What’s your major concern about your future? | |
| The right to study – I’m worried I may be forced to leave education because of its economic impact on me and my family | 9,07% |
| Precariousness in work – I’m worried that my knowledge won’t be reflected in what I’m going to do once finished education | 73,01% |
| Quality of education – I’m worried that what is taught won’t help me developing any citizenship awareness and it’s not well taught and/or useless | 9,29% |
| Safety in schools and universities | 3,76% |
| Vocational education and training and Internships – I’m worried I will have to attend an internships which is unpaid, not controlled and will be useless for me when entering the labour market | 2,64% |
| I’m not worried about anything and I agree that Italian students have enough rights when talking about education | 2,24% |
| Question n.2 – In the 90s schools and universities started to hear about autonomy, which means that schools and universities are free to manage mainly 3 aspects: access, financial management, didactic, research. Do you believe that… | |
| Autonomy means that privates can finance schools and can access decision-making bodies and influence curricula and research. | 5,77% |
| Autonomy means that privates can finance schools but cannot access decision-making bodies and cannot influence curricula and research, those last two must be decided by schools on the basis of national standards | 25,63% |
| Autonomy means that schools have to be able to decide curricula and implement research, by guaranteeing the representation of each and every component (schools, teachers, education workers) and denying the possibility to privates to access schools and universities bodies. Everybody should be considered as active part in the school life and should be consulted, even through the use of referendum and consultations | 61,97% |
| There’s no need of autonomy. Every aspect of school and universities life, from financial aspects to curricula, should be managed from the government. | 6,63% |
| Question n.3 – Since ages in some countries of Europe a basic income is guaranteed to students as a way of endorsing education. A basic income is an economic support, could be a direct money supply or an indirect supply of services that every students can have. Do you believe that… | |
| A basic income is an onerous and useless expense in times of crisis | 6,44% |
| A basic income implements the possibilities to access education by removing economic barriers to enter educational paths | 34,85% |
| A basic income, if regulated on the basis of the family general income and of the educational outcomes, may implement the interest of students to education and culture. | 52,78% |
| A basic income is not necessary as today everybody has the possibility to access education | 5,93% |
| Question n. 4 – The system of students welfare in Italy has been modified in the past years by giving more power in managing it to regions and diminishing public funding. There’s no national law on the right to study and not every region in Italy has one. Do you believe that a student welfare that guarantees scholarships, housing, transports and access to culture… | |
| Should be guaranteed to “those with no means” to make sure that everybody has the right to emancipate from his/her family and allowing everybody to get over social and economic differences | 45,25% |
| Should be guaranteed to “those with no means” only if the reach reasonable outcomes when evaluated | 27,66% |
| Shoudl be only guaranteed to “the worthy ones”, not considering their economic background | 23,43% |
| Should be replaced by students loans | 3,65% |
| Question n. 5 – Nowadays in Italy interns and trainees are not seen any guaranteed right. Each student should have the right and possibility to access working periods during education but too often these experiences are not formative. What do you think that could be a good model of internships and traineeships? | |
| It is necessary to adopt a “Charter of rights for students on traineeships and internships” that guarantees working paths which are really formative and specializing and during which students are dealing with education-related tasks and get new skills, knowledge and expertize | 77,14% |
| Students must have the possibility to leave their educational path when they are 15 in order to access an apprenticeship, as commanded from the Collegato lavoro (art. 48, comma 8) | 14,87% |
| Internships and traineeships must be abolished because it’s a loss of time which should be used for curricular activities | 4,65% |
| The VET system in Italy need no changes | 3,34% |
| Question n.6 – In Italy the number of students which finishes university and gets a degree is one of the lowest in Europe. The block of turnover in universities and the lack of funding resulted into the growth of restricted-access courses in universities. In your opinion university should.. | |
| Have only totally restricted-access courses in order to guarantee a higher quality of learning and a higher possibility for graduated students to find a job | 12,44% |
| Have only free courses as the right to study has to be guaranteed to everybody, as everybody should have the possibility to be evaluated in itinere and not on the basis of standardized tests that block the access to education. | 57,02% |
| Have restricted-access courses only in thoso faculties established by European policies (Medicin, Architecture, Odontology) and free access for other courses. | 30,54% |
| Question n. 7 – Through INVALSI in schools and AVA in universities new methods for evaluating quality of education have been introduced. The objectives are: gaining statistical datas useful in order to know and improve the quality of the educational system, address policies, fundings. Do you believe that… | |
| It is necessary to contrast the INVALSI-AVA model as it is confusing and tends to build an education systems based on smatterings and which dictates new cuts on the fundings to universities | 26,94% |
| It is necessary to support the INVALSI-AVA model as it is objective, transparent and tends to orient education to the labour market needs | 16,30% |
| It is necessary to build a new model of evaluation which should be more democratic, and should guarantee the participation of decision-making bodies of schools and universities in the set of the criteria. Evaluation must not tend to exclude but should tend to improve the quality of education | 47,69% |
| It is necessary to change the INVALSI-AVA model in order to make it more selective. E.g. The results of the test should affect the student for example in linking outcomes to students contribution or to fundings to schools. | 9,06% |
