Italian Education System

The project to reform the Italian University System has introduced some important innovations in the organization of the academic study programmes, implementing the decisions taken by EU Ministers in Bologna in 1998. 

Students can apply to Italian Universities only if they have an educational qualification that allows them to enrol. This qualification of secondary education has to be awarded after a study period of at least 12 years. If the educational qualification has been awarded in less than 12 years, it has to be accompanied by the academic certification of the examinations taken or a post-secondary title to compensate for any missing years of secondary education. 

The European Credit Transfer System is used by Italian universities to evaluate and measure the workload teaching hours and the higher education effort of every single course. Credits also measure the student workload which is required to pass the examination and include class attendance, classwork, laboratory work and individual study. It is also possible to obtain credits for other training courses, or project works or theses, internships, foreign languages, basic computing skills, training in communication and public relations and group work.

One credit corresponds to a workload of about 25 hours and the yearly workload for an average study course corresponds to about 60 credits.

Each subject is assigned a number of credits which the student obtains when he passes the final examination. Exams are graded using a grading scale of 30, where 18 is the minimum passing grade and 30 cum laude the highest grade.