To "arm oneself against ignorance" has always been one of man's most basic needs. In the Bible itself, also known as the "book of books", we can find the existential pillars supporting this need: the centrality of the person, of a person's freedom, of decisions made from the heart, of knowledge and wisdom that knows no age, of the values of the spirit.
Life-long learning, learning from all the experiences life throws at us, continually expanding our minds, relationships, our emotions and motivations, taking on culture and the necessary skills to feel fulfilled as a human being and to participate fully in social development are all still, now more than ever, demanding and fascinating challenges for modern-day man.
The right to study and to receive an education, also as a stepping stone towards being able to benefit from other civil and social rights, has been recognised at many an institutional level: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Art. 26) adopted in 1948 by the United Nations; UNESCO, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Literacy decade 2003-2012); European Social Charter (1961) by the European Council; Lisbon Strategy (2000) by the European Union; and the Italian Constitution, 1948 (Art. 33 and 34).
It is now common knowledge that denying an education to a person equals denying the person himself. The problem is how to guarantee this right to all citizens in the most satisfying way possible. It is still an uphill struggle, in Italy and in Veneto too.
Regione del Veneto's recent Green Paper, "Veneto 2020. The education system: Education and Training", clearly sets out the strengths and weaknesses of the situation in Veneto and prospects for the process implementing the right to education in Italy and Europe in general.

It is difficult to give a basic summary of the "educational" dimension of a person, being as it is, a component of the wider and more complex concept of quality of life. The following outline provides an attempt to identify the macro nodes of the education network, taken as an articulate system, multifaceted and influenced by continual interaction with a wide range of subjects.
The central node is the end purpose of the education system as a whole, i.e. its ability to guarantee full, global and continual development of people's personalities (as individuals, citizens and workers) through efficient life-long learning and guidance and through all of life's experiences.
The concept of "educational quality" is brought down to its most basic, essential form in this node (Figure 4.1.1).
The nodes above and below the central node deal with the "person/family" and "community".
People and family groups are the most important holders of the right to education and provide the environments in which needs and demand for education are formed and developed. The community, taken as a network of people, resources and activities, is the environment in which important aspects of the needs and demand for education spring from (the right to citizenship and to work), in which individuals and groups take on important decisions regarding politics (aims) and educational strategy (means), and in which the facilities providing education operate.
The node on the left regards in particular the complex system of educational needs, the demand for education and guidance, and people's expectations towards the world of education. Educational needs should be taken in the wider sense; they refer to a person's global growth, with respect to the different aspects of human potential (mental processes, emotions, relationships, knowledge, skills, behaviour, intellect, motor functions, communication).
This is growth which comes about through individual and personal learning processes, which can be self-conducted or stimulated by family, social or work environments or by organised community educational systems.
The node on the right is made up of phenomena related to the production of education in the strictest sense, such as decisions on policies and strategies, educational structures, processes and products as part of the complex system aimed at encouraging and aiding a person's learning process (infant schools, compulsory schools, vocational courses and secondary schools, universities, systems and services for life-long learning and adult education).
The nodes are linked to each other, directly or individually through the central "educational quality" node.
In this report, it will not be possible to statistically document, either synthetically or generally, all of the phenomena regarding education in the aforementioned model.
The information contained herein regards mainly the set of variables in the "educational needs/outcomes" node, referring to training following compulsory education, i.e. regional vocational training and above all upper secondary schools.