Pnrr, what’s wrong with Education and Research
Alessandra Servidori's post
On 6 December the Recovery and Resilience Plan was presented in draft to the Council of Ministers , which we know has sparked the diatribe in the majority and the minority, which is still ongoing. 125 pages specifying how Italy intends to spend the 209 billion euros that will be made available by the Next Generation-EU ( NG-EU ) in the next 6 years (2021-2027).
The Plan must be approved by the Council of Ministers, then presented in Parliament and then formally in Europe, where it will arrive by the end of April 2021. The European Commission will evaluate the individual projects and approve them or not.
The Plan is divided into six “missions”, each divided internally and provides funding for each mission: Digitization, 49 billion; Ecological transition, 74 billion; Sustainable mobility, 28 billion; Education and research, 19 billion; Gender equality and social and territorial cohesion, 17 billion; Health, 9 billion. We know first of all that the Plan requires the approval of numerous legislative reforms to make the use of resources effective.
In this reflection I dedicate particular attention to education, training, research for which lines of action are foreseen but we know well that the real problem today is the distance from work since many students leave school with a poor knowledge of spelling and syntax, and without a real interest in knowledge. Without ever reading a book, much less a newspaper.
Today, it is widely believed that school is a place for socializing but not for learning that can be spent especially in the workplace. There is no doubt that politics has proven to be disinterested in school not only by taking away resources but also by avoiding those changes that would have made it a place to learn useful things for work. And in this period of confinement what is most denounced by the students is the impossibility of being in a group and in reality, poor in cutting-edge methodologies (unfortunately still many) the aspect of being together becomes prevalent. Instead, we have local realities where entrepreneurial and university efforts have supported tools that have made it possible to reform schools in the community without waiting for national guidelines and resources. Weaving relationships also progressively at regional and European level with excellent exchanges between school and work between theory and practice, offering the needs of the social and productive system by responding together school, business, institution to the need for skills and modifying the curricula. But we know well that the Italian reality is still very poor in these good practices.
Baroque and very unconvincing arguments accompany the draft proposal in the Education and Research mission, which is particularly analyzed in this comment, with particular regard to the school, because it always "materializes", according to the draft, in 2 lines of action or components: 1) Strengthening teaching and the right to study 2) From research to business.
These two lines of action will be accompanied by a series of reforms based on guidelines that do not have a temporal and above all factual vision. Reform of the school staff selection system, integrated with training and trial periods; Introduction of continuous training modules for managers, teachers and ATA (life-long learning) staff, with credit system and compulsory attendance. Strengthening of the training offer, in particular in enabling disciplines 4.0, and related to the productive vocation of the reference territory. And then again the introduction of guidance modules in upper secondary schools, innovation of university education (plus other reform items for the university).
The first line of action, "Strengthening teaching and the right to study", has the general objective of improving the results and performance of the school and university systems, in particular it aims to: reduce the school dropout rate (14.5% in 2018 compared to the EU average of 10.6%), strengthen the digital, linguistic and STEM skills of school staff, including by expanding student curricula, reduce territorial and gender disparities, increase the percentage of the population aged between 25 and 34 years in possession of a tertiary level qualification (now 28% compared to the 44% average in OECD countries), with the enhancement of research and tertiary vocational education, and relaunch of ITS.
It is sadly evident that once again they propose a random list of the evils that afflict the Italian school. There is a lack of a rigorous analysis of the causes that determine these failures and a consequent coherent elaboration of alternative conditions that allow proposals and ideas to be implemented. There is therefore a lack of vision and priorities.
For example, the reform of the system for the selection of school personnel, in particular of teachers, is proposed again, regardless of the reasons for the subsequent failures accumulated in recent years, and without addressing the key issue of decentralization of recruitment. The greater evil is also highlighted by the lack of creation of an intermediate school leadership, hypothesized since 1997 with the launch of autonomy (Law 59/97 art. 21 paragraph 16) and today proved to be more indispensable than ever. Finally, there are not only gaps, but also wrong settings. Like the proposal to "broaden the curriculum". To innovate and adapt the curricula, it is necessary to “redesign” them, not to “proceed by additions”. We are in the presence of bulimic and fragmented curricula which are one of the causes of dispersion.
A very recent work by the OECD, Curriculum 2030, made public on 25 November 2020, examines the Curriculum overload (curriculum overload) and a new Curriculum Design, with the aim of overcoming plethoric curricula, making them fair, flexible and autonomous, redesigning them with a ecosystemic and value-driven approach.
The Plan provides that the draft will be implemented in the next six years, a period in which, in all likelihood, Italy will change 3 or 4 governments with different political orientations. For this, it is necessary that this National Recovery and Resilience Plan (Pnrr) find the maximum consensus not only among political forces, but also in civil society and among social forces. For example, it would be useful to listen to and collect intelligent suggestions such as those of the associations of school leaders that indicate 3 priorities: a new legal status of teaching and managerial staff; the relaunch of technical and vocational, secondary and tertiary education, with particular reference to the South; schools open to the community, in the ugliest suburbs.
The question of the professionalization of teaching and management requires that action be taken on several levels, not only on the contractual one, first of all means a new Legal Statute for teachers and managers and for teachers. All the issues ranging from initial training to recruitment, from in-service training to evaluation, from a new approach to professional autonomy to career development and differentiation, etc. need to be placed back into a single regulatory framework. Basically, a national framework that has new points of reference in autonomous schools, in the Regions, in the European Union, which overcomes ancient myths and formalistic collegiality to build teaching as a collective enterprise.
One of the decisive aspects is the construction of an intermediate leadership, defining different types, professional standards, training and access methods. A statute of school management must be redefined that returns to managers the priority function of educational leadership in a vision of sustainable and systemic leadership. And then we still know very well that technical and professional education in our country has progressively lost its driving force, made up of fruitful links with businesses and the world of work, of laboratory learning, of a proud culture of operations, of project and work. It is necessary to change the pace and vision of their purposes with a relaunch with an eye to the world of 5G, the green economy, the circular economy and sustainable development.
A training that focuses on entrepreneurship skills and leadership skills. We learn from Germany once and for all the profound redefinition of the curricula with the overcoming of the bulimia of the disciplines, with ample space for laboratory activity and school-work alternation, inserted in the curriculum with its own times that do not interfere with those of the other disciplines . Institutes that know how to establish a deep bond and exchange with their territory and businesses, and which have the world as their border. For professional institutes, it is a question of overcoming the damage produced by law 40/2007 which effectively suppressed them, homologating them to the technical institutes, with the loss of the possibility of autonomously imparting qualifications. Many attempts have followed one another to restore identity to Professional Institutes, think of the recent Legislative Decree 61 of 13 April 2017 – Revision of vocational education paths – but there are still fallback solutions that do not deeply affect the hybrid situation of these institutions.
Projects that look above all to the South, where those who go to upper secondary school continue to greatly prefer high school courses over technical and professional ones, is where professional training is practically absent. The model that can be created prepares both for work and for the University, but it must also have a particular link with the Higher Technical Institutes, which nevertheless continue to not take off and remain the great absentees of the education system in Italy.
Schools are needed which enjoy special educational autonomy as in Germany and Great Britain. Highly autonomous schools, to relaunch technical education, especially in degraded areas, as proposed by ADI (Association of Italian Managers and Teachers).
The 0-14 age group, including the integrated 0-6 system and the first cycle of education, is particularly delicate. Schools located in degraded suburbs, where there is no social capital and where constraints are sometimes criminal, deserve particular attention. Institutes that can have a deep bond with their community with a view to the world and its sustainable development.
We need schools that are clean and architecturally beautiful, run by the best teachers and leaders, rigorous and committed. Schools where all the necessary services are present, from medical to social assistance, where the canteen and the library are guaranteed, where digital is familiar and where the community is fundamental as a reference. We are well aware that these changes are tiring but absolutely necessary since the training courses and curricula must be parallel and coordinated with the extraordinary ongoing evolution of the professions and work roles that are reported to us by innovative environments. A ruling class will be needed to ensure effective governance to reap the benefits and disseminate them. This is the challenge.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/pnrr-cosa-non-va-su-istruzione-e-ricerca/ on Mon, 28 Dec 2020 09:27:52 +0000.