Voucher policies represent a market mechanism to support school choice, with the expected effect of stimulating competition among schools and, in turn, positively benefiting the educational outcomes. As the only Italian region adopting this policy to free private/public school choice, Lombardy is the subject of this study. In particular, we aim at…

Motivated by empirical reality of differences in the scope and meaning of school choice and private schooling this article focuses on the public demand for increasing diversity of educational options In Europe and the division of public and private provision in it. We aim to test self-interest and ideology-driven logics of education policy…

The Gelmini reform implemented in Italy in 2010 was designed to ensure greater efficiency and effectiveness within the higher education (HE) sector. The reform was implemented in a climate of general austerity, which caused severe cuts in public funds for the university system. This paper documents the unintended consequences of the reform in…

This study, which aims to investigate some potential effects derived from the adoption of performance-oriented funding in the higher education system, is focused on competitive allocative mechanism to provide universities with the staff recruitment budget in the Italian Higher Education System using panel data spanning the period 2012-2018 for 58…

The aim of this report is threefold. Its first section provides an overall sketch of the situation across Europe and the underlying mechanisms for the differences in European countries. The second section focuses on the heterogeneities within each country. It examines the disparities among students in order to understand which of those correlate…

The article highlights the models of inclusive education of Italy, Germany, Sweden, Norway, and Great Britain. Inclusion models can be classified into three basic ones, according to the ratio of the number of primary school-aged children at general and specialized schools, namely: full inclusion, partial inclusion with a predominance of pupils at…

This handbook aims at helping policy makers and social partners to look at the issues involved in financing work-based learning programmes--programmes that are part of formal vocational education and training and combine learning in the workplace with learning in the classroom--and to make better choices between the policy options that face them…

Module A of the OECD Higher Education Policy Survey (HEPS) 2022 elicited information on policies to promote digitalisation of higher education in OECD member and accession countries. In total, 30 jurisdictions responded, providing comparative information on various areas of digitalisation policy, from regulation and governance to financial and…

To obtain a better understanding of country-specific policies, a country-specific literature review was undertaken. The search entailed key-terms focusing on relevance and the three higher education relevance dimensions. The main outcomes of the country-specific literature review are discussed in this chapter. We do so by analysing the typically…

Performance-based funding (PBF) for public colleges and universities is increasingly prevalent worldwide, as a part of a broader pattern of marketisation in public education. This study focused on developing an empirical view of how, and in what contexts, policy makers use the concepts of neoliberal economics to design and support PerformanceBased…

This book critically examines the ramifications of reforms to higher education institutions. All of the higher education system reforms implemented in western countries over the last three decades have had one fundamentally important aim: namely, that of changing the existing institutional and system governance arrangements. This book argues that…

The aim of the Regional dossiers series is to provide a concise description of European minority languages in education. Aspects that are addressed include features of the education system, recent educational policies, main actors, legal arrangements and support structures, as well as quantitative aspects such as the number of schools, teachers,…

This report explores the different ways in which European Union (EU) Member States (MS) have attempted to ensure high-quality ECEC (Early Childhood Education and Care) for children and families in the era of COVID-19. The rationale for the report builds on the Conclusions of the European Council concerning the fight against COVID-19 in education…

Educational policies and practices are influenced by cultural, political, and economic factors, and this is also true of specialized educational approaches such as gifted education. Factors such as a country's cultural tendency toward egalitarianism or meritocracy, whether the political system is centralized or decentralized, and the degree to…

This article reflects on the fabrication of austerity in the Italian education system during the recent financial crisis and the resulting economic stagnation in the economic outlook. In particular, it describes the construction and emerging configuration of a mode of educational governance where standards, data analysis and performances play a…