The role of school education is to educate young people. It does so for two main purposes: to equip them with the technical and intellectual skills needed to find a job and, above all, to foster a generation of active citizens. To fulfil this role, young people need to understand the world in which they live, the factors that have shaped it, the main contemporary schools of thought, how our view of the world has changed, and the institutions that govern it.

School education, on the other hand, does not explain to pupils the world in which they live, but that of their grandparents. This is because the actual school curricula – that is, those that are actually taught – are stuck in the mid-twentieth century.

The findings of the Skuola.net survey on the 2026 school-leaving exams show that 41 per cent of classes stopped at the Second World War, 10 per cent at the interwar period and 3 per cent as far back as the First World War. The figures also point to a downward trend: in fact, in 2026 only 22 per cent managed to complete the syllabus, compared with 37 per cent in 2025.

The same trend is evident in Italian literature: 23 per cent – down from 28 per cent in 2025 – have completed the syllabus, whilst 42 per cent have only covered authors from the early 20th century and 2 per cent have not progressed beyond the 19th century. The other humanities subjects follow the same pattern.

Most Italian students, therefore, study phenomena that are more suited to understanding the world of their great-great-grandparents than their own.

The data reveal not only a system that is incapable of providing the tools needed to understand the world today, but also a system that fails to achieve the objectives and programmes it has set for itself.

This can be attributed to two factors.

The curriculum for the final year is becoming increasingly extensive, whilst that of previous years remains unchanged. This increases the workload in just one year, consequently triggering a race against time to complete the set tasks – a race which, incidentally, is lost.

The second factor isthe attitude of teachers, who tend to follow the same curriculum throughout their careers, even decades later, thereby widening the gap between the actual and the nominal curriculum. But this is a direct consequence of the poor organisation of the Italian school system: the Ministry prefers to shift the burden of structuring the curricula – now formally known as the National Guidelines – onto teachers, rather than carrying out a serious reform.

The reforms

A number of reforms have been implemented in recent years. For example, civic education has been introduced. As set out in the ministerial guidelines, the aim of the reform is to develop ‘knowledge and understanding of the social, economic, legal, civic and environmental structures and characteristics of society’, in other words, to provide pupils with the tools to understand their world.

The reform provides for 33 hours per year and, to quote the ministerial guidelines, ‘the teaching is entrusted to teachers of law and economics, if available within the school’s teaching staff. Otherwise, as is the case for the first cycle, teaching is entrusted jointly to the teachers on the class council’.

This means that, in cases of joint responsibility, teachers – who are already struggling to complete their syllabuses – are forced to take on an additional workload. What appeared to the ministry’s top officials to be a last-minute winner has turned out to be an own goal.

The effect on students

A sixth-form student finds himself having to interpret the contemporary world through the works of Kandinsky, Marx’s Manifesto, D’Annunzio’s poems and the political movements of the early post-war period…These are not the right tools for understanding his world.

This means that an 18-year-old, relying solely on what they have learnt at school, is unlikely to have the skills to find their own way in the world in which they live. When it comes to voting, therefore, they will be easily manipulated, particularly by populist parties. As the 2022 CISE data show, these parties attract more support amongst the least educated sections of the population and, at the same time, have a high proportion of young people amongst their supporters.

It is hardly surprising, after all, that a young person lacking the tools already mentioned should base their vote on their feelings: cash handouts, immigration, tradition, false pacifism, etc. can all become highly appealing factors.

Another phenomenon linked to a lack of the tools needed to understand the issues is voter apathy. A survey carried out by the National Youth Council in collaboration with the Piepoli Institute found that in 2024, only 47 per cent of young people were likely to vote.

And what about Europe in all this?

If you were to ask a sixth-former what is celebrated on 25 April, they would reply: Liberation from Nazi-Fascism (hopefully). If you were to ask the same question about 2 June, they would reply: the founding of the Republic. The more attentive pupils in the class would also remember 17 March, the anniversary of the Unification of Italy, 4 July (America’s Independence Day ) and 14 July, the Storming of the Bastille.

But if you were to ask a school leaver what is celebrated on 9 May, they wouldn’t know how to answer. Even if you added the year 1950, the result wouldn’t be any different. And yet 9 May is Europe Day. Admittedly, it isn’t a bank holiday, but that doesn’t detract from the significance of this date.

This shortcoming stems from the government programmes mentioned earlier: the EU is not discussed in schools, or rather, it is discussed only in terms of Erasmus+ – over 9,700 projects launched in ten years – or in terms of funds to be spent.

As a result, school leavers have no real understanding of what the European Union is, what its institutions are, or what influence it has on their own lives.

As an EU citizen, an Italian citizen should have the opportunity, right from compulsory schooling, to study the history of European integration, the ideas that led to its creation, and the impact that Europe has had on our history and continues to have.

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The need for reform

The system needs to change. A good reform must, first and foremost, address the National Guidelines – also known as the curriculum – by redistributing the historical periods studied, increasing the focus in the fifth year on the most recent contemporary period, from the post-war era to the present day, and dividing the remaining periods across the other four years.

Of course, this will mean reducing the amount of study devoted to other subjects; after all, this is a necessary process that occurs in every historical period, and it is impossible to do otherwise.

This redistribution must apply to all humanities disciplines, in accordance with the principle of interdisciplinarity, which is already in use within our system.

The reform must also incorporate Europe, by including, in the various subjects and in a manner appropriate to the subject matter, references to the EU – that is, to its thinkers, its history and its institutions.

Looking to the future by teaching the recent past rather than the distant past is a solution, though not a cure-all. It is certainly a necessary first step towards reviving our ailing education system – which is, after all, the Italy of tomorrow.