A skills base that prepares for change

The summer period, while not lacking in some umbrella topics, light or made so, if not tragicomic, such as some controversies over the regional elections, was characterised by major international events such as the US tariffs and the two wars going on in or around Europe. With these situations, the news of mega-investments in AI, as well as the related mega-results and mega-dangers for mankind, will continue to hold sway in the months to come.

It is in this climate of distressing uncertainty that this year's young Italian graduates are being called upon to make a crucial decision for their entire professional lives. University? Which University? Is it possible to give them some advice at a time when they are receiving it from all sides, as disinterested as they are interested? On the other hand, this is the time when universities with a declared profit motive have entered the education system. No wonder then that some of them use advertising techniques, in some cases even three-for-two, just like in supermarkets. As a 'person in the know', I would like to give them some advice purely on method.

Education includes two major opportunities: a) the transfer of skills; b) the cultural maturity of the person. With regard to the first aspect, to which the immediate attention is understandably directed, since it ensures a professional training capable of allowing a quick entry into the world of work, the advice is to keep an eye on the ability of universities to quickly update the knowledge professed, as well as to investigate what is the network of 'employers', public and private, with which the university deals. Without forgetting that any training must be authentic: no employer is satisfied with a simple piece of paper, not even the public one, which is obliged by the Constitution to hold public competitions.

These factors, however, signal the fragility of a choice that only looks at the first aspect. And indeed, the demands of the world of work change with enormous speed. Let us only think of the daily evolution of AI or Trump's tariffs, which are disrupting the world economy with knock-on effects that we will only understand over time: entire economics textbooks would have to be rewritten.

The second aspect is therefore also extremely important: the university, in addition to preparing professionally, must train culturally, i.e. put the student in a position to place their skills in a broader horizon of thought and evaluative skills. This will mean, over time, being able to interpret the changes that will inevitably come, so as to concretely and intelligently adapt their professionalism. This is a higher step that students and their families would do well to look at carefully. The country certainly needs skills, but above all it needs reasoning minds, so that its ability to stand on the increasingly competitive world market is enhanced or at least not depreciated. It is on this that our prosperity has depended and will depend. There are many countries potentially richer than Italy. But the latter is still the seventh industrial power in the world. What makes the difference is precisely its culture, not understood as a repository of the past, but as a dynamic factor in the formation of human capital.