Introduction
Education quality and equality have always been an element of high priority in almost every political campaign agenda. This can be attributed to the contribution of education to the general development of a nation. For instance, the skills, competencies and knowledge acquired during school life are prerequisites for an effective citizen participation in development affairs, employability and even in general cohesion of the society. For an economy to ensure that it has adequate labour force that is efficient and appropriate there must be a consistent standard of high quality education.
This essentiality of the quality and equality of education in a country has also been reflected in regional and international organizations. These organizations include the United Nations whose concern with education can be evidenced by the formation of an arm that deals with educational matters in its member countries. On its part, the European Union also ensures that it supports its member countries in the effort to promote the education quality. This is specified in the EC treaty’s Article 149 (European Commission, 6). However, not all countries have maintained a high standard of education quality and equality. Different countries point out individual weaknesses and strengths in their education systems. In accordance to this, this paper will evaluate the Italian education’s quality and equality and compare it with the American one.
Indicators of education quality
The European Union’s commission on education and culture came up with several elements which are regarded as indicators to the quality and equality of education. These indicators are divided into diverse areas of approach. These areas are attainment, success and transition, monitoring of school education and finally resources and structure. Using some of these as the basis of evaluation, the education quality of Italy and the United States will be compared side by side (European Commission, 6).
Attainment of education can be subdivided into several minor segments to find the quality of education of a country. These categories include the performance of students in Mathematics, science, reading, ICT, foreign languages, learning to learn and civics. In mathematics, which is a fundamental subject in the development of analytical skills, logic and reason determine the quality of education due to the importance of these skills relevant to it. On its part, reading allows students to understand the given instructions to all other subjects. In addition, these skills enable the learner to develop societal integration and personal development skills after accomplishing his education. Science provides the tools and skills necessary for environmental investigation and experimentation. This is the basis through which the students can develop critical thinking and also understand how nature and human beings can interrelate. At advanced levels, these skills form researchers who are a prerequisite for technological development. Furthermore, ICT provides skills that enhance a country’s access to free and fast information (European Commission, 6).
In most of these study areas, Italy has participated in the Third International Mathematics and Science study and portrayed its prowess in these two fields. On their part, the United States also participated in this international research and the final result pointed out that the United States is ranked slightly higher than Italy. For instance, Italy’s average reading ability was ranked at 70% as compared to the United State’s 72%.
In addition, while the data on Italy’s performance cannot be established, the government of Italy has come up with the SET Project which is aimed at improving the culture of science and technology among the students and also increasing their performance level. This would be achieved through improved quality of teaching. ICT has also been incorporated in both the United States and the Italian education systems. This has been done to facilitate the information flow which would increase the knowledge of students. The activities in both systems include provision of access to the internet, provision of mailboxes to all schools, providing connectivity that is of low cost and also assisting in school website hosting (European Commission, 6).
Dropout rates are also considered as one of the factors to show a country’s quality of education. This is very essential as the global society has completely become a knowledge based one. The economic development and the competitive nature of the society are calling for people with adequate knowledge and skills. Accordingly, without these skills, an individual will be left behind. With the society calling for long-life learning, it becomes quite difficult for those with simply basic education to compete in the highly competitive arena. As a result, negative attitudes towards learning which leads to dropping out of school before acquiring relevant skills can be detrimental to the future of its victims. This factor is very essential because the higher the dropout rate, the more difficult to attain employment on the global job market. In this field, Italy performs poorly. Italy’s percentage of youth who had attained lower secondary level and below and who were not engaged in any form of studies stands at 30.2%.
Accordingly, it was ranked the second worst EU member after Portugal. The report attributes these high dropout rates to the education system and the socio economic factors. On their part, the United States’ dropout rate is lower as compared to that of Italy. For example, the dropout rate of by the year 2004 only was estimated at 5%. Research points out that an approximated 5% of all students who registered in high school in October 2003 were no longer in school by the same month in 2004. This shows a smaller dropout rate as compared to Italy’s 30.2 % (National Centre for Educational Statistics, 4).
Participation in tertiary education is a prerequisite in the competitiveness of an individual. An education system that allows for as many students to this level as possible can be classified among quality education systems. A quality education system allows for vocational courses which link directly with the requirements of the labour market. Most of the most successful systems do not rely purely on the academic focus. Before the education reforms in 2002, Italy was poorly represented in this area. Its graduation rate from type A tertiary organizations was 19% which increased to 39% between 2002 and 2006. However, the occupational oriented shorter courses also referred to as tertiary type B do not comprise a part of higher education. With this rate, Italy tops the rate of tertiary dropout in OECD countries (Education at a Glance, 4).
On their part, the United States has been way up in terms of tertiary education. It was even the measuring tool for the European countries’ decision to improve their education standards. Data by the OECD studies has continuously pointed out that the United States remains a powerful knowledge economy. An internal rate of return for an individual who attains this level of education in the United States is 12.4% higher than all the other countries that were involved in the research by OECD. This means that the tertiary education in the United States is far more advanced as compared to that of Italy.
Offering of international programs also points out a country’s quality of education. Individuals tend to enrol in countries with a good education system that will offer them a competitive edge. Studies by OECD point out that more than 2.9 million students enrolled in countries that were not their home countries for tertiary education. There have been reported increases in student mobility with countries reporting an 18% foreign student enrolment. However, only a handful of countries account for the largest amount of this ever increasing number of foreign enrolments. 49% of them are enrolled in the US, UK, France and Germany. Italy accounts for less than 2% of these enrolments. Although the country has shown relative improvements, the comparative analysis shows that Italy is still way down the ladder. By 2000, Italy accounted for 1.3% of total foreign student enrolment worldwide. This percentage improved to 1.7% in the year 2006. This is a small number as compared to the United States which accounted for 20% of all the foreign student enrolment. This can be an indicator that the level of education in Italy still lags behind because it fails to attract foreign students (Education at a Glance, 4).
Despite the disparities in the analysis of the two education systems, there are other factors found to offer identical characteristics in both. In terms of segregation, many schools in both countries have failed to integrate the diverse ethnicities within the schools. In the United States for instance, the effort of desegregation that was pushed during the 50s to the 80s has completely assumed a new turn. The 90s have witnessed schools resegregating at an alarming rate (Kozol 18).
Schools in small low class regions have witnessed less involvement of the government and other agencies in the promotion of their education. Resegregation took the best of the 90s and currently, some areas like Bronx have schools that are completely black and Hispanics. Human rights research as quoted by Kozol points out that New York, California, Michigan and Illinois are the most affected areas in terms of segregation. Yet, the effort to integrate schools has not been launched by the government. The only effort was in 1972 when the leadership of the time passed the Bill to increase funding for schools that showed any substantial effort of desegregation. This was later short down by the Reagan administration (Kozol 19).
In addition, Kozol points out that schools in low class regions have been subjected to poor quality education, absence of sufficient libraries, unqualified teachers, poor individual school programs, poor infrastructure et cetera. Considering the example given by Kozol (14), the teachers in Bronx are so unqualified that some of them use swearing words when addressing students and when trying to keep children under control, a teacher uses threatening words to make the kids concentrate on the film that is old and functioning poorly. This is the similar situation in Italy. Segregation in the schools is highly evident.
Children from well of families are exposed to good private schools which offer quality education as compared to small schools from poor regions of the State. In addition, the government was contemplating on a proposal that most critics found out to be a promotion of segregation. Mariastella Gelmini who is the minister responsible for instructions proposed that the immigrant children be given special bridge classes so that they can have opportunity to catch up with their native counterparts (Dorigo par. 2).
The welfare of teachers and the government’s spirited support of school programs also point out the quality of education in an education system. In Italy, the government has felt it wise to reduce the spending on teachers and hence reduce the public schools’ personnel by 132000 units. In addition, the government had made a proposition to reduce University funding and also reduce the number of institutes involved in research (Dorigo par. 3).
On their part, the United States of America has also witnessed some disparities in the spending on the education systems. For example, New York City schools are subjected to a per pupil spending of $11, 700 which is way low as compared to well off suburban schools which have $22,000 per pupil spending. In addition, teachers in low class regions like Bronx earn an average of $43,000 an amount that is low when compared to other well off towns like Rye which has an average of $74,000, Manhasset with $77,000 and $81,000 in Scarsdale (Kozol 45). This shows that while the government has put in efforts to sponsor education in the country, the level of involvement varies greatly. This leaves some schools in a state similar to that of Italy where the level of education is low due to low involvement by the government and other factors that promote education.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Italy has had a system of education that is not well developed as compared to several other OECD countries. This accounts for its poor performance in international rankings against the pointers of quality education. However, Italy is witnessing an improvement, albeit a slow one. On their part, the United States has always been a powerhouse in terms of knowledge. They have ranked high when measured on the indicators of quality in education. This has also resulted in high demand of their education as characterised by the high amount of foreign enrolments. Unfortunately, the level of education is not equally distributed in the whole country. Segregation has been implicated negatively on the education leaving some schools to remain in poverty and hence poor quality of education. This is also evidenced by the amount of money that the government pumps in the different regions. Therefore, it suffices to say that the education system of America is comparatively better than that of Italy.
Works Cited
Education at a Glance 2005. “OECD Briefing Note For United States”. Web.
Education at a Glance 2008. “OECD Briefing Note for Italy”. Web.
European Commission. “European Report on the Quality of School Education: Sixteen Quality Indicators.” Directorate-General for Education and Culture. 2000. Web.
National Centre for Education Statistics. “Dropout Rates in the United States: 2004.” Web.