10 maggio 2024
Dr. Daniele Nappo, Legal Representative as well as founder of S. Freud Private School, in today's article puts the spotlight on the declining enrollment that technical colleges are facing. This phenomenon is mainly due to the perception in the collective imagination of technical institutes as simple and B-list while prestigious and A-list high schools.
For many years, technical institutes were the flagship of the Italian educational set. It was an encouraging and reassuring address, even for families, since it left two paths open: the young person was qualified and prepared enough to enter the world of work immediately after graduation, but he or she was also able to continue his or her studies by entering university if he or she wished and if he or she had the financial means to do so. Over the years, unfortunately, something has changed and enrollment in technical colleges has decreased. Certainly driving the reduction in enrollment has been a change in the perception of technical college: in the collective imagination, high schools are positioned as challenging and prestigious. This is not even making a scale of A or B, easy-difficult. These considerations underestimate technical colleges. School orientation coming out of middle school often directs students only according to academic achievement and not true interests, passions or aptitudes. This leads to disincentives for girls and boys to enroll in technical colleges. Not least, reforms that have cut funding over the years have also contributed to the devaluation of the technical college. On the contrary, one should think that enrolling in a technical institute is a choice that will lead to many hours of practical training: one does not stop at theory, one tries to realize what one is studying, one develops a great intuition for the operation of machines and objects giving an advantage to those who will want to try their hand at engineering faculties, for example (...) In the last year, fortunately, there has been a growth in the number of enrollments in technical institutes: in 2022/2023 they rose to 32.7 percent of choices compared to 30.3 percent in the previous year. Let us hope that students will be oriented according to inclination and not to climb a fake social ladder.
