School Reforms and Alternative Schools in Italy

Innovations in the Regular School System: Official accounts list the following major results of the Italian school reform:

a) decentralization of responsibilities, especially for the encouragement of the disadvantaged and for vocational training;

b) de facto lengthening of compulsory schooling to eight years by the secondary school law of 1962;

c) standardization of the school system (standard secondary school; uniform standards of admission into higher education for all second-level secondary school graduates);

d) uniform staff structure in the educational system;

e) democratization of the school system. (1)