Its Academy leap: students increase from 11,000 to 41,000

The NRP has given the Its Academy the long-awaited 'leap forward'. Total enrolments in the system have risen to almost 41,000, 40,854 to be exact. There are no less than 1,662 laboratories, new or upgraded, with advanced 5.0 technologies, and 1,422 quality training courses. To all this must be added the 18,491 orientation pathways that saw the participation of 126,783 students, mostly from high schools.

To give an idea of the 'resounding improvement', as the Minister for Education and Merit, Giuseppe Valditara, tells our newspaper, it is sufficient to recall the starting, pre-NRP figures: in 2021 there were approximately 11,000 students enrolled in the Higher Technological Institutes, thus more than tripling. The number of innovative laboratories has also more than doubled, testifying, Valditara added, 'to an unprecedented strengthening of teaching and connection with work. A success'.

The NRP provided for a 'one-off' allocation of 1.5 billion: 855 million were invested to strengthen the educational offer, orientation, scholarships and internationalisation. The remaining 645 million to strengthen and laboratories.

Not only that. Thanks to the new regulations, penned by Valditara, the exit phase from the Pnrr is also being managed: in fact, an extension to 30 June has arrived for the conclusion of the workshops (with the possibility, in exceptional cases, of reaching 31 August), and the deadline for concluding all the training courses has been moved to 31 October. In addition: there are 15 million to promote the opportunities offered by the Its Academies (which we would like to remind you have an employment rate of over 80%, with peaks of 90-100% in many territories, source: Indire); a further 120 million notice has been published; and the Its laboratories have been opened up to third parties (obviously outside the hours of training activities for students).

"The result of the Its Academy on the Pnrr is exceptional and is one of the best examples of public-private collaboration achieved in our country," emphasised Riccardo Di Stefano, Confindustria's delegate for Education and Open Innovation. The numbers on the increase in enrolments but, above all, on the innovative workshops designed and implemented speak for themselves. As an entrepreneur, I am proud of the work that so many of my colleagues have done and are doing in the territory, in the more than 90 Its Academies where Confindustria is a protagonist, Its that also at a European and international level are taking on the characteristics of a real model that is respected and imitated. All this work must continue beyond the NRP and I am sure that with the Ministry and the Regions, but also with the European institutions in Brussels, we can and must do so much more together, both on funding and on partnerships, certain, as the data confirm, that we have taken the right path'.