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EDUCATION

Here are the top-ranked universities in Italy

Wondering where to study in Italy? Here are the Italian universities that score highest in the latest global ranking.

Here are the top-ranked universities in Italy
A statue of Minerva, Roman goddess of wisdom, outside Rome's Sapienza University. Photo: AFP

Italy has 36 universities in the latest QS World University Rankings for 2021, two more than last year. Within Europe, that puts it ahead of France (with 31) and Spain (27), but well behind the UK (84) or Germany (47).

QS, the world’s most consulted ranking, measures factors including the opinions of academics and employers, class sizes and the number of international students.

This year, it declared the best Italian university to be the Politecnico di Milano, which came 137th (up from 149th last year) out of around 1,000 institutions worldwide and top in Italy for the fifth year in a row.

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The biggest technical university in Italy, Milan’s Polytecnico scores highly for research and for its reputation with employers.

It also does well with international students, with more than 100 countries represented in the student body and almost all postgraduate courses offered in English.

Next up was the University of Bologna, the world’s oldest, at 160th place.

The historic university enjoys a strong reputation among academics and in recent years has attracted more EU funding for research and innovation than any other Italian institution.

Here are the rest of the top ten in Italy:

  • La Sapienza, Rome: 171st overall
  • Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa: 204th
  • University of Padua: 216th
  • University of Milan: 301st
  • Politecnico di Torino: 38th
  • University of Pisa: 383rd
  • University of Naples: 392nd

The University of Naples rose from 424th place to take a spot in the top ten – the only university in southern Italy to be included in a list which is usually dominated by institutions in the north.

Other Italian universities score particularly well in certain categories, with most of Italy’s best marks coming for research. Employers ranked Milan’s Bocconi University, which as a specialist business and law school isn’t included in the overall ranking, 70th in the world for its highly hireable graduates, while Pisa’s Scuola Normale Superiore came 16th worldwide for an excellent ratio of faculty to students.

Most Italian universities, however, scored poorly on class sizes, with top-ranked Politecnico di Milano employing just over 1,500 faculty for nearly 36,000 students. (The Scuola Normale Superiore, for comparison, has around 190 academics for 560 students.)

READ ALSO: Everything you need to know for a semester abroad in Italy


Photo: Tiziana Fabi/AFP

Those considering studying at one of Italy’s large public universities should be prepared for “a big, relatively anonymous university experience”, says Lucas Mennella, a college counsellor at St Stephen’s School in Rome.

“If you’re coming from Europe, there’s not going to be a big difference from other state universities: big classes, mostly lectures, limited contact with your professors, and your whole grade is an exam,” he tells The Local.

“But if you’re coming from the US, Italian public universities don’t tend to provide all the add-ons that American universities have – like gyms, associations, anything like that.”

READ ALSO: ‘Studying in Italy can be remarkably cheap’

Students might also find themselves having to do some extra legwork to impress employers.

“If you were to [do an undergraduate degree in] Bologna or somewhere like that, it’s perfectly fine but there aren’t very good job prospects coming out of it,” Mennella says. “You basically have to do a masters to be competitive. And they don’t usually help you find internships or anything like that.”

Many of his students choose to go abroad for their degrees, he says, but within Italy, Politecnico di Milano, Bocconi and the private LUISS in Rome are usually the top choices.

And for people looking to study abroad in Italy, there are several American universities either based in Italy or with campuses here – John Cabot University, the American University of Rome and Temple University Rome to name just a few – where students can find American-style tuition, albeit for much higher American prices.

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EDUCATION

Inquiry calls for free after-school care for 6-9 year-olds in Sweden

Children between ages 6-9 years should be allowed admittance to after-school recreation centers free of charge, according to a report submitted to Sweden’s Minister of Education Lotta Edholm (L).

Inquiry calls for free after-school care for 6-9 year-olds in Sweden

“If this reform is implemented, after-school recreation centers will be accessible to the children who may have the greatest need for the activities,” said Kerstin Andersson, who was appointed to lead a government inquiry into expanding access to after-school recreation by the former Social Democrat government. 

More than half a million primary- and middle-school-aged children spend a large part of their school days and holidays in after-school centres.

But the right to after-school care is not freely available to all children. In most municipalities, it is conditional on the parent’s occupational status of working or studying. Thus, attendance varies and is significantly lower in areas where unemployment is high and family finances weak.

In this context, the previous government formally began to inquire into expanding rights to leisure. The report was recently handed over to Sweden’s education minister, Lotta Edholm, on Monday.

Andersson proposed that after-school activities should be made available free of charge to all children between the ages of six and nine in the same way that preschool has been for children between the ages of three and five. This would mean that children whose parents are unemployed, on parental leave or long-term sick leave will no longer be excluded. 

“The biggest benefit is that after-school recreation centres will be made available to all children,” Andersson said. “Today, participation is highest in areas with very good conditions, while it is lower in sparsely populated areas and in areas with socio-economic challenges.” 

Enforcing this proposal could cause a need for about 10,200 more places in after-school centre, would cost the state just over half a billion kronor a year, and would require more adults to work in after-school centres. 

Andersson recommends recruiting staff more broadly, and not insisting that so many staff are specialised after-school activities teachers, or fritidspedagod

“The Education Act states that qualified teachers are responsible for teaching, but that other staff may participate,” Andersson said. “This is sometimes interpreted as meaning that other staff may be used, but preferably not’. We propose that recognition be given to so-called ‘other staff’, and that they should be given a clear role in the work.”

She suggested that people who have studied in the “children’s teaching and recreational programmes” at gymnasium level,  people who have studied recreational training, and social educators might be used. 

“People trained to work with children can contribute with many different skills. Right now, it might be an uncertain work situation for many who work for a few months while the employer is looking for qualified teachers”, Andersson said. 

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