http://www.life-keyskills.

info/
http://europe.nortcoll.ac.uk/LIFE/docs/LIFE%20WP2%20country%20report%20IT%2001(en).pdf

WP2 Standards for integrating key competences in life skills into

vocational teaching
Country report for Italy

1. Research sample

Centri di Servizi per il Volontariato di Modena e Reggio Emilia

Regione Toscana - Cultura e Educazione, Area Coordinamento

MUS-E - associazione onlus per la prevenzione nel disagio scolastico

CGIL – Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro - Pistoia

2. Summary of research findings – application of these standards to national

teacher training frameworks
(Identify key results of interviews & discussions with relevant parties including social
partners)

In Italy the system of vocational training, under the power of regional governments, has been living
for almost ten years a transformation process focused on achieving an equal status with the school
system, ruled by the State.

About basic competences training standards, in January 2004 the State-Regions Conference,
seeking harmonization between the national school system and the vocational training regional
systems, had arrived at an agreement, defining, among the subjects of discussion and standards
regarding technical professional contents and sector standards for the achievement of professional
qualifications, also the minimum training standards concerning basic competences.

The agreement had stated that the study plans had to be customized in order to consolidate and raise
the basic competences level, according to a division in four areas:

1) languages area;
2) scientific area;
3) technological area;
4) historical, social, economic area.

Meanwhile, the regions were starting a process of self-transformation towards the constitution
of a skills recognition system, that for regions such as Tuscany, is being concluded today with
the production of final regulations.

In February 2008, the Conference of Regions and autonomous provinces had strengthened the focus
on the key competences, endorsing the contents of the European Parliament Recommendation and
the Council of December 2006 on this issue, indicating them as common cultural threshold to
prepare young people for adult life and to offer them a way to continue to learn throughout their
 WP2 Standards for integrating key competences in life skills into
vocational teaching
Country report for Italy

entire lives. This further confirmation by the regions, of the importance of considering the basic
competences as a key element in the design of the vocational training, was in the process of
establishing the criteria to be followed for a compulsory education and, particularly, with the
adoption of guidelines for the accredited vocational training agencies.

The paths of education and vocational training were coming together at that time in a way perhaps
"new" in Italy, thanks to the recent possibility of carrying the school obligations also within the
regional systems of vocational training.

Even in Tuscany therefore, being this region a leader government in the process towards a new
system of assessment and accreditation of skills, are discussed the basic\key competences to be kept
in mind when designing the vocational training, as established for the trainings related to
compulsory education and the right and duty.

The regional legislation expects that those who choose, after the compulsory education, to follow a
professional qualification path (one year), acquire the same basic competences gained after the first
two years of the secondary school.

To enable the effective use of the skills acquired in different contexts (formal and non
formal/informal), Tuscany, on the basis of several preliminary steps and a trial on the scope, is now
finalizing the definition of a processes architecture to recognize and certify competences, which
also covers the classification of basic competences.

The product of these pathways is the text, entitled “Regional Standard for description, training,
recognition and certification of competences update 04:02:08”. This regulation text speaks
explicitly of the key competences required to be taken in consideration when designing the
vocational training and that will come into force from July 1st, 2009.
The text states that the key competences individualize the knowledge and capacities which,
although not directly related to the dimensions of professional work, are an integral part of
vocational training as essential to guarantee the conditions for effective employability and exercise
of citizenship rights.

The Life project proposes standards and methodologies that are consistent and complete as
proposed by the Tuscany regulations.

3. Specific country requirements & difficulties

It's very important to emphasize two aspects:

1) The key competences defined by the text of the Region of Tuscany are based explicitly on
the European Parliament and the Council of 18 December (2006/962/EC), from which an
attachment is formally adopted as a standard reference for Tuscany to define the key competences
 WP2 Standards for integrating key competences in life skills into
vocational teaching
Country report for Italy

for employability and citizenship. The EU Recommendation is an integral part of regional standards
for the vocational trainings in Tuscany.
2) The regional text supports that learning objectives related to key competencies should be
defined based on the specific needs of each type of user and, therefore, vary according to the type of
path that is planned.

Even considering the relevant comments of the various stakeholders interviewed, whose testimonies
have substantially contributed to this theory, we can say that the Region of Tuscany adopts with its
own regulation production, the key competences as a crucial element of professional training and,
although assuming the European recommendation as a basis for developing those skills, leaves, at
the same time, the possibility for operators and planners to decide with which characteristics and
models to link the basic/key competences to the training beneficiaries and the professional profiles
dealt with.
In this matter, Life proposals are fully reflected, both in existing legislation and in the trainers
interest in responding to the regional standardization that requires the possibility of applying
effective methods and contents even in the development of key competences, such as those
proposed by the Life project .

4. Recommendations

Once is in course the final step of regional law production, which shows the introduction of a new
system that leaves ample room for the applicability of the Life project results, both in terms of
contents usage and methodologies proposed by the project, all those interviewed agree in the need
of promoting the dissemination of training on basic competences, spreading, as far as possible, the
project’s information and tools.

5. Appendix

Sentences:

Andrea Bellani - Modena and Reggio Emilia Volunteer Services Centres’ Consultant and
European Commission’s external evaluator for LLF measures

... The key competences are a current topic especially in Italy, but also among teachers and trainers,
there’s still a lot of people who don’t master computers and English yet.

On training the trainers we’re still fairly backward. The trainers themselves don’t know it. In
schools, perhaps, we’re far ahead, the systems are different ...

Silvia Marconi - Culture and Education Officer - Tuscany’s Coordination Area

The new legislation comes into force from July 1st, 2009, so trainers and planners must take into
account the key competencies ...
 WP2 Standards for integrating key competences in life skills into
vocational teaching
Country report for Italy

Riccardo Niccolai, MUS-E Coordinator, Onlus Association (school problems prevention)

The level of awareness among the operators is high, but there are difficulties in part related to the
resources available ...

CGIL Pistoia - Gessica Beneforti Syndicate – responsible for the training area

The key competences are important because those who enter the vocational training often lack of
basic training and the recall to competences for life is always more important even because in the
professional training we receive more and more immigrants, who need these competences even
more.

The teaching methods should be regulated to the particular needs of these customized persons etc.
There is not always attention to the different training people.

ISFOL OMS OCSE/DESECO UE Ministero Pubblica

1994 1994 2003 10. 11. 2005 Istruzione
03. 08. 2007
ESSENTIAL COMPETENCES FOR
LIFE SUCCESS AND FOR THE 8 key competences for 8 key competences for
BASIC Decision making
PROPER FUNCTIONING OF lifelong learning citizenship
COMPETENCES
English SOCIETY
Act in autonomous way Communication in mother
Informatics Problem solving Learning to learn
1. Ability to defend and tongue
Business assert their rights,
Organization
responsibilities, limits and Communication in foreign
Syndicate / labor Law Creativity needs Design
languages
1. Labor active 2. Ability to define and
research implement programs and Mathematical competence
techniques Critical Sense personal life projects and basic competence in Communicate
2. Economics 3. Ability to act in an overall science and technology
TECHNICAL Effective framework within a wide Collaborate and
PROFESSIONAL Digital competence
Communication contest participate
COMPETENCES Interpersonal Instruments usage in interactive Act independently and
3. Specific for each Learning to learn
Relationship manners responsibly
sector 4. Ability to use language, Interpersonal, intercultural,
TRANSVERSE Self-knowledge symbols and texts in social and civic Solving problems
COMPETENCES interactive manners competences
4. Diagnostic: self 5. Ability to use knowledge Identify links and
competences Empathy Entrepreneurship
and information in relationships
and attitudes; the interactive manners Acquire and interpret
problems Managing emotions 6. Ability to use new Cultural Expression information
5. Relationship: technologies in interactive
communicate, manners
teamwork, Function in socially heterogeneous
negotiate groups
Confront: enhance self- 7. Ability to establish good
learning, face and solve Managing Stress
relations with others
problems, develop 8. Ability to cooperate
creative solutions 9. Ability to manage and
resolve conflicts
 WP2 Standards for integrating key competences in life skills into
vocational teaching
Country report for Italy

01. La Dichiarazione mondiale sull’educazione per tutti: dare risposta ai bisogni fondamentali di
apprendimento dell’UNESCO – 1990
02. Imparare a vivere: un progetto di massima per l’eccellenza (Learninga living: A blueprint for
High performance)–USA –1992
03. Competenze per la vita dell’OMS (Life skillseducationin schools)–1993
04. JacquesDelors, Crescita, competività, occupazione, Unione Europea, Bruxelles 1994
05. Edith Cresson, Insegnare e apprendere: verso una societàconoscitiva, Unione Europea,
Bruxelles 1995
06. Competenze di base per l’occupabilità dell’ISFOL-1994 e 1998
07. Commissione dei Saggi, Le conoscenze fondamentali su cui si baserà l’apprendimento dei
giovani nella scuola italiana dei prossimi decenni (maggio 1997)
08. Minigruppo dei Saggi, I contenuti essenziali per la formazione di base(marzo 1998).
09. OCSE Esami delle politiche dell’Istruzione, Italia, Armando editore, Roma 1998
10. Conclusioni del Consiglio europeo di Lisbona, 23/24 marzo 2000
11. Memorandum sull’istruzione e la formazione permanente, Documento di lavoro dei servizi della
Commissione delle Comunità Europee, 30 0ttobre 2000
12. Relazione del Consiglio (Istruzione) per il Consiglio dell’Unione europea sugli Obiettivi futuri e
concreti dei sistemi di istruzione e formazione, Stoccolma 14 febbraio 2001
13. Rapporto nazionale sul processo di consultazione relativo al Memorandum su istruzione e
formazione permanente – Italia-novembre 2001
14. Competenze chiave. Un concetto in divenire nell'istruzione obbligatoria di Eurydice (Key
Competencies. A developing concept in general compulsory education) – 2002
15. Competenze chiave per una positiva vita attiva e per il buon funzionamento della società
dell’OCSE (KeyCompetenciesfora Successful Life and a Well-Functioning Society) – 2003
Rapporto finale della ricerca DESECO
16. Competenze chiave per l’apprendimento permanente. Un quadro di riferimento europeo.
Allegato alla Raccomandazione Parlamento europeo e Consiglio relativa a competenze chiave per
l’apprendimento permanente del 10 novembre 2005
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