Since the last decade of the previous century, the economy and lifestyle of most peoples began to change due to two major developments: globalisation and the technological revolution which brought benefits to the US economy in particular, by improving efficiency and productivity.
As a consequence, in defining priorities for a European Union that could compete with the United States and the world's other major countries, European political leaders who gathered at the Lisbon summit in March 2000 established the strategic objective of becoming "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth, more and better jobs and greater social cohesion". 
To achieve this objective, they recognised the need to adopt a global intervention strategy with coordinated and integrated actions in the economic and social sectors. They recognised in particular that for a sustainable economy it is essential to modernise the European social model by investing in people and combating social exclusion.
Although many of the objectives identified by the Lisbon Strategy 2000/2010 have been met, much progress has been neutralised by the recent crisis. The European Union has thus been called upon again to identify a strategy, Europe 2020, for the next ten years, to combat the effects of the crisis and relaunch the economy.
To this end, the Commission's Communication Europe 2020 - Brussels, 3.3.2010 identifies three drivers of growth to be put in action at European and national level: these include smart growth, which aims to develop an economy based on knowledge and innovation. At the same time, as with the Lisbon Strategy, it also establishes targets to be reached within the decade.
Furthermore it highlighted the fundamental role that education and training have to play, and the improvement of the quality of these in order to assure greater benefits and opportunities for young people, and not only, with an eye to improving the quality of employment and social inclusion. The following aims are therefore considered priorities: combating school dropouts, which must fall to 10% by 2020, and raising the share of 30-34-year-old graduates to at least 40% in these 10 years.
In Italy in 2009, 19.2% of pupils left school prematurely, i.e. the percentage of young people aged 18-24 years old with a qualification lower than a secondary school diploma and who are not attending other school courses or training courses over two years long. This figure was 25.1% in 2000, but it is still far from the European figure, which is 14.4%. The worst situation is in Malta (36.8%), while the most favourable is in Slovakia where the rate is 4.9%.
The 17% dropout rate in Veneto is lower than the national average, and one percentage point lower than in 2004. The percentage of young graduates is still low, however, just 17.3% of 30-34-year-olds compared with the EU27 average which is 32.3%. In comparing regions, Lazio stands out with the lowest share of school dropouts (11.2%) and a higher percentage of 30-34-year-old graduates (25.6%). Campania, Puglia and Sicilia have the worst results.
It is important to highlight that in comparison to European countries which have already met the objectives indicated in the strategy, or those who are very close, the Italian regions started off at a level which is so much lower that the Italian government has reflected on what could be more realistic targets for Italy to reach by 2020. To this end, it has been decided that the objectives for Italy to attempt to reach are 26%-27% for higher education, and 15%-16% for school dropout. (Figure 12.1.1)
Within this scenario lies the Italian University system reform which came into force in January 2011 (Note 1). The aim is to avoid waste of both money and resources in the universities and to promote meritocracy and transparency. The reform envisages the possibility of merging universities which are close to one another, even for single sectors of activity, in order to reduce costs and increase the quality of teaching and research. It is thus a reform which, according to Italian Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini, should enable Italy to keep up with Europe.

The sustainability of the education system is one of the key instruments to guarantee social cohesion and to offer every young person a future that is in line with their qualities.
It is thus school's task to prevent potential obstacles to education, to assure pupils quality teaching and services, and to improve their motivation and environment. In this way pupils' investment of time and resources in education will not be wasted, and stress and dissatisfaction with school, and in the future the world of work, will be prevented.
The younger generations represent the renewable and renewing energy needed to construct the future of Italian society. They are expected to obtain the education and training necessary to take on active roles in society and employment, guaranteeing natural alternation with previous generations.
The educational choice that young people make after compulsory schooling thus plays a key role. As will be seen below, the choice of school has a strong influence on dropout rates and educational attainment.
The keys to sustainable development are the elimination of disparities in upper-secondary school, making schools more uniform and accessible, and guaranteeing equal opportunities to all students, regardless of origin.
"Social status" refers to the position that an individual occupies in society in relation to other individuals. This is determined by various factors, such as owning material goods, employment, access to financial resources, culture and social prestige.
In accordance with constitutional principles, the education system has moved closer and closer to a model which should allow all students to achieve education and training objectives on the basis of their abilities and not family background.
Yet in a recent study, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (Note 2) analysed the influence of family origin in relation to educational choices, attainment and employment. Italy emerges as a country which is struggling to grow, and is failing to remove the link between young people's educational attainment and that of their parents. People whose parents have completed tertiary education are 50% more likely to graduate than others, while those from low educational family backgrounds are 45% more likely not to gain an upper-secondary school-leaving diploma. These differences remain in the labour market: the income of those whose fathers have a university degree is, on average, 50% higher than those whose fathers have lower educational attainment. Furthermore, 40% of the economic advantage of a well-paid father is transmitted to his child. Finally, if we look at the differences between the various OECD countries, Italy is one of the lowest as regards intergenerational mobility. Here it is difficult for people to free themselves of the baggage inherited from their parents, and being born in certain environments still makes a difference.
Coming from a more well-off family with higher income and educational attainment is undoubtedly an advantage for the future career of young people, though it is not necessarily linked to reaching high knowledge levels; unlike other countries, in Italy social status has little influence on school results. According to a survey by the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), in 2006, the average score obtained in science, reading and maths by 15-year-old students whose parents had medium-high jobs was 16% higher than that of the other students. These differences exist in Italy too, though the gap between the two groups is smaller: +11%. If we rank countries where parents' jobs influence their children's school results most, France is in first place, followed by Germany and Portugal; Italy is last but one, followed only by Korea.

Tell me where you're from and I'll tell you where you will go...

Family background has a strong impact on the choices regarding the career path chosen after lower secondary school. A summary indicator based on parents' qualifications and jobs (Note 3) has been constructed from the data of a 2007 survey by Italy's National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) on the education and working careers of those who graduated from secondary school in 2004. From this we can see that in Veneto, 35% of secondary school-leavers come from families with "low-level background", 32% from families with a "medium-level background", and the remaining 33% from families with "high-level backgrounds", values which are in line with the national average.
As the family background indicator increases, and thus parents' qualifications and jobs, the percentage of young people who choose a vocational or technical school decreases and the preference for lyceums increases. In Veneto 33% of young people with low-level educational backgrounds choose a vocational school (27% on a national level), 49% choose a technical school (same percentage on national level) and only 14% choose a lyceum (21% on a national level). In Veneto the percentage of people with higher profile families who choose lyceums is 60%, in line with the figure for Italy, and only 7% choose a vocational school. (Figure 12.2.1)
Therefore, it is above all the less well-off young people who attend vocational schools: of all the people who enrol at vocational schools, 58% come from families with low social profiles. On the contrary, if we look at lyceums, 56.5% of young people have parents with higher educational attainment and jobs.
The influence of family background is even greater when looking at the difference in marks students obtain for their lower-secondary school leaving diploma. In short, those students who leave lower-secondary school with high marks and go on to study at a technical school are from families with low-medium backgrounds, whereas those who then go to a lyceum are from medium-high status families. On the other hand, those who have had difficulty in lower-secondary school and leave with low marks will nevertheless go on to study at a lyceum if they have a medium-high family status, but technical or vocational school if their social status is low-medium.

Parental influence on school and work

The differences do not stop once school is over, but pervade for years to come, also in the choice between work and university. Regardless of the type of school attended and results obtained, young people with low-profile families tend to go to work, while those with higher-profile families go to university.
A more detailed look tells us that most young people with a vocational diploma opt for a job, though to a lesser extent for those with more well-off families. On the other hand 90% of those who leave lyceum from higher backgrounds, and 77% from lower ones, go on to university (or study and work). But the gap is greater if we look at technical schools. On average, 55% of those with a higher background carry on with their studies, but this percentage goes down to 27% for those with lower profile families. (Figure 12.2.2).
Family status still has considerable influence on choice of school, results and prospects after leaving school. There is a pressing need for a policy aimed at re-balancing educational opportunity for young people which is aimed at talent, rather than birth. We need to introduce guidance and educational activities which are addressed to different audiences, as well as to invest more in weaker subjects who cannot count on their families' cultural resources; there also needs to be more social solidarity to support families who cannot afford to keep their children in education for long.
In order to assure all students are able to follow a secondary school career that is most appropriate for their talents and interests, and to guarantee they attain knowledge objectives and acquire abilities for life, whatever pathway they choose, all young people must be put on the same level.

Good guidance today for a more sustainable tomorrow

The choice of secondary school is very important and influences young people's futures. A wrong choice can lead to dissatisfactory results even in the first year. But school dropouts can also be caused by ineffective schools which do not cater to young people's talents. Many young people experience failure, which undoubtedly has an influence, often negative, on their expectations, motivation and choice of future training. Young people need to be provided with continuous guidance, as well as gradual and personalised encouragement to learn, if they are to obtain better results.
In the 2006/07 school year, more than 38% of dropouts at upper secondary school were in the first year of study. In the province of Padova this share reached a high of 42.6%. A total of 3.6% of all Veneto students who enrolled that year dropped out in their first-year. There is great variability between different areas: the province of Treviso had 2.4% of enrolled students drop out; Padova had over 5%.
Furthermore, in the last five years, the share of enrolled students repeating their first year in Veneto has grown: it went from 8.4% in 2004/05 to 10.2% in 2008/09 (Italy: 10.3%). But the situation varies depending on the type of school: 6.7% of pupils fail and have to repeat the year in lyceums, 13.4% in vocational schools.
This also indicates different selection procedures. In 2007, after the first year of secondary school, 7.5% of pupils in Veneto drop out. This is the fourth lowest figure in the regional rankings, against a national average of 11.4%. Top of the rankings is Umbria with 5%, while Sicilia is the region with the highest rate, 16%.

School and young people: who determines success?

Providing effective responses to the difficulties pupils may have during upper secondary school means forestalling failures which may occur at school, but also in life and then at work.
School is seen as a continuous path to better understand oneself: awareness of one's aptitudes and expectations develops during school, as you learn more subjects you learn about your interests, talents and consequent expectations.
It is thus imperative to talk about the different kinds of school on the basis of the pathways of pupils who choose them in order to understand an essential part of the complex mechanism that is school and to make more targeted and conscious educational policies and strategies.
Guaranteeing young people equal opportunities according to their choice of school means characterising schools according to the needs of society and the labour market and of the young people who attend them. Everybody has to be assured a place and a sustainable future lifestyle in society.
Overall, educational attainment in Veneto is higher than the national average: 74.3% of those enrolled in the first year subsequently gain their school-leaving diplomas, compared to a national average of less than 71%. But things change depending on the school chosen. While on the one hand 83% of lyceum pupils and 76.3% of technical school pupils reach the fifth year, less than 58.4% do so in vocational schools. The figures for Italy are similar, with a trough of 48.4% for vocational schools. There is thus a clear imbalance between vocational schools and the other types, and in the former there seems to be a much more evident process of selection over the five years.
In both lyceums and technical schools the biggest stumbling block seems to be getting past the first year, whereas pupils in vocational schools have trouble both at the beginning and halfway through, although it should be remembered that a small share of pupils in vocational schools leave with a qualification after only three years.
Furthermore, in 2006/07 the number of pupils in lyceums who were not admitted to the subsequent year was about one third of those in vocational schools. In lyceums, 6.9% of pupils were not admitted to the following year against 18.3% of pupils in vocational schools. Six out of ten lyceum students pass all of their subjects and go onto the next year, but this goes down to about one in three for those in vocational schools: in a company this would be called "low productivity".
The problems encountered during the school year can be explained mainly by analysing the subject studied and the type of school: almost two in three pupils in language lyceums do not pass a foreign language; while maths is the most difficult subject for students in vocational schools and technical schools (fails in 44.4% and 41.7% of cases respectively). Lyceums, and in particular those which focus on classical studies rather than scientific ones, have fewer pupils leaving with insufficient grades (between 10% and 30% for all subjects). This stimulates reflection on the growing need to concentrate on good guidance for students of the more vocational schools.
Finally, the distribution of secondary-school leavers by the mark they obtain in their final exam differs for the type of school attended. Pupils from lyceums get higher marks: over 19% leave with a mark above 91%; on the other hand about 47% of those enrolled at technical schools and 52% at vocational schools will leave with lower marks.
In short, there seems to be an imbalance in the selection process for pupils of vocational schools; these are students who want a less theory-driven and more technical/practical training and they choose this type of school so they can enter the labour market as soon as possible. Peers of the same age at lyceums and technical schools on the other hand are more oriented towards going to university after secondary school. What is more, as can be seen in the paragraph relating to the influence of social status, it is mainly young people from the lower social profiles who choose this type of school. (Table 12.2.1)
The key to educational sustainability as regards supply depends on a region's ability to provide adequate facilities and services to meet its citizens' needs.
Educational accessibility, meaning uniform distribution of schools and pupils enrolled in a region, is a first step towards an education system which offers equal opportunities. Distance from place of study remains one of the limitations we need to overcome before we can say that upper secondary school is truly accessible to everyone. Consider how influential the distance from home to school is on the choice of school by young people.
The problem of accessibility to schools is linked with the broader concept of social sustainability. Having to take children a long way to school can indeed be a limit which affects both the costs and time, not to mention the stress, of families who have to take this on.
On a national level (Note 4) in 2008 over eight out of ten young people used a means of transport to get to school; it stood at 81.3% for 14- to 17-year-olds and rose to 86.8% for 18- to 19-year-olds. Coaches were the most widely used means, with nearly one in three students using them; these were followed by buses and trams, with 21.2% of 14- to 17-year-olds and 22.1% of 18- to 19-year-olds. A total of 24.7% of 14- to 17-year-olds and 16.6% of 18- to 19-year-olds were car passengers. The latter figure is lower because 10.7% of young people drove a car on obtaining their driving licence.
Mopeds, scooters and bicycles are more popular amongst boys, while the girls prefer to be accompanied by car.
It follows that on average one in four Italian students aged between 14 and 17 takes over half an hour to get to school, spending at least an hour a day travelling. This share for 18- to 19-year-olds is higher, at 29.3%. The share of students who take less than 15 minutes is 40.3% and 30.1% for the two age groups respectively.

Sustainability in school management

School management also has to be sustainable. Classes which are too large can jeopardise the quality of education. The average number of pupils per class in state schools in Veneto in the 2009/10 school year was 22.3, with a maximum of 23 for the provinces of Verona and Vicenza, down to 20 for Belluno.
The average number of classes per school, state or private, was 19.8 in 2008/09, which makes four classes in each of the five school years. This number drops to 11.9 for Belluno (just over two classes per school year) and up to 24.2 for the province of Vicenza (nearly five per school year).
Support teachers, who help special needs children experience school like their peers, are fundamental. There was on average one support teacher for every 2.2 special needs pupils in upper secondary schools in Veneto in 2009/2010, going from one for every 1.9 pupils with disabilities in Treviso to one every 2.5 in Verona. (Table 12.2.2)

Fewer borders between desks at school: non-Italian pupils are more integrated

A sustainable education system is one which sees change as an opportunity for renewal, as a challenge in which its educational and social capacity can be put to the test, and which guarantees equal access to education and training to all citizens.
In the last thirty years Italy has experienced a considerable amount of migration with international migrants settling and integrating into communities. This has brought a significant increase in the birth rate of children born to non-Italian parents in less than ten years. Consequently the share of non-Italian pupils in Veneto schools has grown, making Veneto one of the regions with a high incidence of non-Italians in the education system.
A key indicator of integration of pupils with non-Italian citizenship in the education system is the share enrolled at upper secondary school, the first real moment of educational choice.
This percentage increased almost sevenfold from 2000/01 to 2008/09, going from 0.9% to 6.9%. The trend on a national level is in line with this, though less marked, growing from 0.7% in 2000/01 to 4.8% in 2008/09. (Figure 12.2.3)
In the 2008/2009 school year, considering the total of non-Italian pupils in all levels of school, the most common nationality was Romanian, making up 15.2% of all the non-Italian pupils, followed by Moroccan (14.7%) and Albanian (11.3%).
Nearly 44% of non-Italian pupils enrol at vocational schools and 41% at technical schools. Non-Italians are more geared towards jobs of a more technical or manual nature which can be found sooner in the labour market; only 13% of non-Italian pupils attend lyceums. The incidence of non-Italian students in relation to the total number of enrolled pupils is much higher in vocational (13.6%) and technical (7.7%) than in lyceums (2.4%). (Figure 12.2.4)
Sustainability in schools also means meeting the educational needs of current pupils, without compromising those of future ones (Note 5). This regards not only pupils' need to learn, but also the ability to instil awareness of how important it is to respect themselves and others, and to freely and independently develop their talents and aspirations so that their future work and life will be fulfilling.
Allowing young people to develop a critical conscience will allow them to be able to make effective and more sustainable choices, orient and educate themselves throughout their lives, an added value for a more competitive society. It is thus necessary to create the right climate to favour study and increase motivation, and to limit situations of tension or discomfort which tend also to limit students in terms of learning and motivation.

Difficult relationships: a limit for learning

School is a place for socialisation, where on a small scale, young people experience community life and find their own space for social interaction in a community of peers. Unfortunately, however, at times phenomena such as bullying can undermine these objectives, creating anxiety and malaise.
From a survey carried out by the World Health Organization called Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC), we can obtain significant data regarding bullying (Note 6). In 2006 in Veneto, more than one in four 15-year-old pupils had participated in some form of bullying at least once in the two months prior to the survey. This share goes down to 8.2% if we consider recurrent bullying (two or more times in the previous two months). A total of 15.4% of 15-year-olds have, on the other hand, been subjected to at least one episode of bullying at school in the two months prior to the study, and 3.5% are regular victims.
Most bullies in Veneto are male, and this increases as they get older: the gap between male and female bullies increases considerably, both for occasional episodes and for recurrent ones (almost 15% difference for 15-year-olds).
Venezia is the province where "backing" among bullies is highest: for each victim in this area there are on average 3.6 bullies, highlighting how this is repeated group behaviour for young Venetians. On the contrary in Belluno, episodes of bullying are almost always one on one between aggressor and victim. The regional average is 2.3.
If we then look at how many 15-year-olds in Veneto say they have taken drugs such as ecstasy, cocaine and LSD, the results are disconcerting. In Rovigo over 6% of 15-year-olds say that they have already taken cocaine, 5.5% ecstasy and 3% LSD.
Just looking at the data for the regional average it is immediately clear how difficult it is to reconcile such a high rate of substance use with good cognitive and psycho-social development. (Table 12.2.3)

Veneto residents are the most satisfied with their schools

According to data from the ISTAT 2007 survey on young people who had taken their school-leaving exams three years before, it is possible to evaluate their degree of satisfaction with their school experience. Their evaluation is generally positive, as much so for Veneto as for Italy: relations with teachers are good, as is teacher professionalism and the contents of what was studied. In all cases more than 80% of secondary-school graduates are satisfied.
The most satisfied in Veneto are those who attended a technical school, followed by those who went to lyceum and finally those with a vocational diploma. In detail, the ex-lyceum students are more satisfied than others as regards the content of what they studied, those from technical school with their school facilities, while those from vocational schools are most satisfied with their relationships with teachers.
Comparing data for Veneto with the national average, the main difference regards the evaluation of school facilities: about 74% of technical school graduates in Veneto are satisfied with them, against 60.5% of Italians. (Figure 12.2.5)
Finally, secondary school graduates in Veneto who work three years after leaving school evaluate the use of knowledge acquired at school in their jobs more highly. Veneto actually ranks second for degree of satisfaction (66.1% satisfied: 64.4% of males and 68.2% of females). Trentino Alto Adige ranks first (about 72%), while Sicilia is last, with less than 56%.

In today's competitive society, it is more and more important to have a sound education. People with lower qualifications are less well-off in terms of lifelong training, employment prospects and are more likely to be marginalised.
Reference standards have been established, first with the Lisbon Strategy and then with Europe 2020, which each country should seek to meet in order to assure the balanced development of all individuals in each country.
Among the European strategic objectives is the will to improve basic competences in reading, maths and science, structural components for "learning to learn" which also allow the acquisition of key competences for autonomous learning and the best employment opportunities. It is with this aim that the European target for pupils with dissatisfactory results in reading, maths and science is to be less than 15% by 2020.
The OECD's PISA survey measures the extent to which 15-year-old school children have acquired these competences, which are held to be fundamental for active citizenship and lifelong learning. In order to do this, every three years students' competences in reading, maths and science will be tested, wherever they are and whatever type of school or class they attend. The results of the students are located along scales of competence which are divided into levels of performance.
It is a sample survey and in 2009 Italy's sample was made up of 1,097 schools and a total of 31,000 pupils who represent a population of over 539,000 15-year-olds enrolled at school. The sample for Veneto is made up of 53 schools with 1,577 pupils tested, which represent slightly over 40,000 15-year-old pupils in the region.
In 2009, for the first time the Italian sample was representative of all the regions and the two autonomous provinces of Trento and Bolzano. Also within each region/province, every type of school was present: lyceums, technical schools, vocational schools, lower secondary schools and vocational training. Regarding vocational training, as can be seen in the National PISA Report by Italy's National Institute for the Evaluation of Education and Training (Invalsi) it was not possible to obtain data from all regions. Hence for those regions which did not provide these data, comparisons with other regions/provinces should be treated with caution (Note 7). Caution is also required when making comparisons with previous reports because vocational training has only been included since 2006.

Veneto: already reaching European standards

An absolute majority of pupils in Veneto were well above the minimum mark ("sufficient") in all three areas. Education in Veneto thus produced satisfactory results, since the percentage with low levels in all three subjects was not particularly high, while the percentage of pupils with a medium-high level of education was above the Italian average.
Furthermore, 12.8% of 15-year-olds in Veneto achieved top marks in mathematics, 7.4% in reading, and 9.0% in science.
Veneto also reached the European objective for reducing the share of pupils with insufficient results to less than 15% by 2020 for reading (14.5% of 15-year-olds registered at school had insufficient results) and science (11.7%). Competence in maths is not far from the objective either (15.9%). However Italy is far from the objective with over 20% of pupils having insufficient results in all three subjects. Maths is particularly problematic with 25% of 15-year-olds not passing, three percentage points above the OECD average. (Figure 12.3.1)
The arithmetical average of scores obtained on the three scales (Note 8) was calculated with the aim of summarising the results obtained in the three subjects with a single number so that the cognitive level of 15-year-olds can be better understood and more easily compared with other regions.
Veneto's average score for cognitive level is 510.5 (Italy: 485.9). This is slightly lower than 2006 but has increased when compared to the score in 2000. On a national level, better scores have been obtained only in Lombardia (521.0), Friuli Venezia Giulia (515.7), the province of Trento (514.9) and Valle d'Aosta (512.5). Finland is top of the international rankings with a score of 543.5, and Mexico comes last, with less than 420 points.

Lyceums rank highest

Both on a national level and in Veneto there is great disparity between the different types of school. Lyceums recorded the highest scores for all subjects, distancing themselves greatly from the other types of schools.
Pupils attending vocational schools obtained lower scores. Once again, there is a need for greater equity and effectiveness in education for young people with more technical and vocational aptitudes and expectations.
The scores obtained by pupils attending vocational training courses are lower still, particularly as regards reading where the average score in Veneto is 403 and in Italy it is 399. (Figure 12.3.2)

Different schools means different cognitive levels

Are the scores obtained in the PISA test more strongly influenced by students' abilities or by their schools?
This can be answered in part by looking at the variance (Note 9) in the reading scores for pupils in different schools and pupils of the same school. The greater the variance, which is a measure of variability, the greater the difference in the scores obtained by 15-year-old pupils within that school or between schools. Consequently, very different scores (high variance) between schools indicate how the average score is influenced by the school itself. That is, there are schools which seem to prepare pupils very well, and those which do so less well. On the other hand, very different scores obtained within the same school indicate the heterogeneity of the pupils' scores within the school.
In 2009 Italy was the country which had the greatest variance between schools for reading, while the variance within schools was quite low compared to others (23.5 out of 100). This highlights how in Italy there seems to be a huge difference in terms of reading scores between schools, whilst difference is very limited between pupils of the same school. In the Italian education system, a pupil's reading ability depends mainly on the type of school he or she chooses. This suggests that pupils probably choose which school to go to just before they are due to start school.
Germany, Hungary and Belgium obtain similar results, while countries in northern Europe and Oceania tend to have low variability in reading scores between schools, but great diversity between pupils of the same school. (Figure 12.3.3)
The challenges posed by demographic and technological changes and the changeable economic and social situation today mean that as well as acquiring basic skills at school, people need to refresh and regularly develop their competences through lifelong learning.
Continuing to learn throughout one's life, through all of life's experiences and continuously growing, is essential not only for competitiveness, employability and financial prosperity, but also for social inclusion, active citizenship and personal fulfilment. If adults can improve their skills they will be more motivated at work, and will bring advantages to themselves as well as to their employers. It is within this scenario that we find the strategic European objective on updating and improving adults' skills, i.e. to provide lifelong learning to at least 12.5% of adults aged 25-64 by 2010 and to 15% by 2020.
On a European level we are far from reaching this target, even though there has been a major increase in the percentage of 25-64-year-olds who attend study courses or professional training. In 2009 the EU27 figure was 9.2%, over twice the figure for 2000. Northern European countries are doing well in this respect; Denmark is top with 31.6%. Eastern European countries on the other hand have low scores. The situation in Italy too is far from rosy: the figure has been stable at 6% for years now. Veneto is in line with the national average with 6.1% of adults in training in 2009. Least distant from the European target is the top Italian region, Trentino Alto Adige with 8.3%. (Figure 12.3.4)
Looking at these data, it is clear that Veneto, and especially the Italian state, will have to make a greater effort in terms of investment in teaching and training in order to support growth in productivity and to respond to the structural changes of the current labour market.
The work done by Regione Veneto is evident, for in the face of the difficult economic situation it busied itself in the field of education and training. Among the various actions undertaken are those aimed at improving the education system, with a view to favouring its integration with training and employment systems, strengthening links of exchange and collaboration between major institutional actors, both public and private, and assuring complementarity between policies, in the gradual perspective of achieving lifelong learning (Note 10).
As economies which are increasingly oriented towards environmental sustainability become more widespread so does the need for a workforce with the right competences. Courses thus need to respond to changing needs and to provide suitable support for the new emerging needs in environmental professions.
Training institute Isfol carried out its annual census on environmental courses through its research department Progetto Ambiente - Ifolamb. Results revealed the situation in professional training, university courses and Masters on a national level. The survey focused on environmental training courses which aim to prepare people for a specific environmental profession, re-training, specialisation, updating of already defined professions, and lifelong learning.
Overall, in the last few years in Italy, we have seen around 2,000 courses providing environmental training for a total of 50-55,000 participants. Recent years, however, have seen a reduced investment in professional training, which is fruit of a gradual adjustment in favour of more consistent growth of university courses in the environmental field.
To be more specific, in 2008/09 there were 2,033 courses, 55.5% of which were training courses, 34.2% university courses and 10.2% post-degree courses. Veneto has 12.1% of the national total, the second highest share in the regional rankings after Toscana, which is top with 14.7%. Compared to 2007/08 environmental training has increased: +3.5% in Veneto and +5.2% in Italy. And it is above all Central Italy, which is investing, providing nearly 30% of all courses in the last year. (Figure 12.3.5)
As regards professional training courses on the environment, the North East has the highest share, 30% of the Italian total. Veneto is top of all the regions with over 18% of the national average, followed by Toscana with 16.3%.
On a national level most of these courses prepare people for the field of depollution, saving and control of resources. Currently the most popular sector regards renewable energy and saving resources, which made up 19.3% of the total number of courses in 2008/09; numbers have more than tripled in the last three years.
As regards university courses on the environment, however, the majority are in the South, which accounts for 33% of the total, as opposed to 17.5% in the North East. In this case too, Toscana is the region which has most courses, 12.1% of the national total, followed by Lazio (11.8%), while in Veneto there are just 4.3%.
If we look at Veneto's potential more closely, in 2008/09 7.4% of the total number of students registered for environment-related courses in local universities. Most of these courses are at Padova University and it is mainly males who choose them, confirming the data regarding green jobs in the chapter on employment. In 2009 almost 8% of students graduated in this field, particularly in the field of civil or construction engineering. (Table 12.3.1)
Finally, in terms of sustainable development, the aim of adequately supporting environmental professions means it is necessary to create high-level professional profiles and specialist competences to respond to the needs of the labour market. This is why it is also important to show the growth in environment-related courses at post-graduate level in the last decade. Since 1999 courses on offer in this area have grown almost fivefold in Italy. Central Italy is where most courses have been carried out, 44% of the total, and vice versa in the North West (15.9%).
Universities are the major promoters of environmental Masters courses, though those promoted by private institutes or bodies, or companies, are growing.