Italy

Teachers, Teacher Education, and Professional Development

Teacher Education Specific to Reading

A university degree in primary school education (Scienze della formazione primaria) has been a requirement for obtaining teacher qualification at the primary and preprimary levels in Italian schools since 1997. The degree may be completed in five years and includes a 600 hour internship that begins in the second year of the course. Student teachers are required to write a final graduation thesis and a report on their internship to complete the degree and certification requirements for teaching at the primary and preprimary levels.¹⁴

Upper secondary certificates obtained before 2001 from scuola magistrale (the former school for primary teachers) or liceo psicopedagogico (secondary school focusing on educational psychology) still constitute a qualifying title to become a primary school teacher. Newly employed teachers are required to complete 50 hours of compulsory training, 20 hours of which are to be conducted through an online platform that was implemented in February 2016. In addition to offering training courses, this platform aims to create a digital environment to facilitate communication, discussion, and the exchange of materials among teachers during their first year of service.¹⁵

Requirements for Ongoing Professional Development in Reading for Teachers

Teachers at the primary level are general classroom teachers. They enter the profession upon completion of a five years masterʼs degree called Scienze della Formazione Primaria (sciences of primary education). The degree has restricted access with an admission test and a limited amount of annual enrollment. Most of the degree study subjects are common for all graduates and mainly related to transversal disciplinary content (e.g., psychology, pedagogy, didactics, evaluation, class organization), with a minor part of the degree dedicated to specific school subjects (e.g., reading, mathematics, geometry, literature). The internship in primary school classrooms begins from the second year of the program. Teachers also have the possibility to further specialize in a particular disciplinary field during their school internship.

From the lower secondary level (Grade 6), teachers are subject specialists and are required to hold a degree related to the subject they teach. To teach Italian language or literature, teachers must have chosen specific courses in their curricula when defining their learning agreement, acquiring a minimum number of university credits through examinations in specific subjects as literature and linguistics, history and geography, educational sciences, and psychology. The credits represent the studentʼs workload dedicated to a subject (class time, individual study, practical activities) and are allocated after the student has passed the subject examination.