In response to the diversity of qualifications and fragmentation of the national system, Italy is creating a unified national qualifications repertory.

The national repertory of education and training qualifications and professional qualifications was created on 16 January 2013 (art. 8 of Legislative Decree 13/2013). The aim of the repertory was to create a homogeneous qualifications and skills description system, using existing methods and descriptions of qualifications and progressively standardising the methods and descriptions of qualifications used in education and VET sub-systems.

The Decree defined an initial set of standard references required for a qualification to be included in the national repertory. These references are:  

  • name of the competent public body;
  • title of each  qualification and description of related competences;
  • where applicable, referencing of the qualifications to the statistical classification of economic activities (ATECO) and the nomenclature and classification of occupations (ISTAT classification of occupations), in compliance with the rules of the national statistical system;
  • referencing of the qualifications of the repertory to the European qualifications framework (EQF), by formally including them in the EQF national referencing process.

Technical committees and groups were established, including stakeholders from various related areas, to assist and oversee the implementation of the national repertory. The main committees are:

  • national technical committee chaired by representatives of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy and the Ministry of Education, University and Research, established on 28 November 2014. It comprises representatives of the Ministry for Public Administration and Simplification, the Ministry of Economic Development, the Ministry of Economy and Finance and representatives of national and regional public administrations and the autonomous provinces of Trento and Bolzano, as competent public bodies. The aim of the Committee is to prepare guidelines to develop the National repertory and skills certification system.
  • technical body, established on 28 December 2015, is made up of representatives of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, the Ministry of Education, University and Research, the regions, appointed by the State-Regions Conference, workers’ trade unions and employers’ organisations. Its mission is to create a repertory of occupations for professional apprenticeships and to identify possible integration between the repertory and what is being developed and adopted in apprenticeships in terms of qualifications, diplomas and higher training.
  • technical group consisting of representatives of the Regions Coordination Group, the regions and the Ministry of Labour.

An important achievement for the technical group was defining the operational framework for the recognition of regional qualifications and related skills at a national level ([1]).  The framework is the part of the national repertory that concerns regional qualifications; it is the sole benchmark for correlating qualifications and making them equal at a national level and progressively standardising them, as well as for identifying, validating and certifying qualifications and skills in terms of educational credits based on the European interpretation.

The Italian repertory is halfway between learning systems and labour systems: Decree 13/2013 enforces reform of the labour market – and not education – and also makes references, even within article 8, to European reform processes, where lifelong learning issues are always linked to strategies for the development of the geographic and vocational mobility of citizens. 


[1] The operational framework was formalised in Interministerial Decree of June 30 2015 as follows: 'Definition of an operational framework for the recognition of regional qualifications and related skills at a national level, under the national repertory of education and training qualifications and vocational qualifications as per art. 8 of Legislative Decree no. 13 of 16 January 2013’.  

 

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