Italy Cannot Afford Toilet Rolls and Paint

Our son started primary school in Italy this year, and he seems to be loving it.  Our six year old’s appetite for knowledge seems insatiable, I’m happy to say.  His progress has been, well, one could say, ‘colourful’.

In fact he seems to be demolishing coloured pencils at an alarming rate.  If I were a tree, I’d be afraid, very afraid.

Every evening his pencil case comes out, and either mother or father spends ten minutes in the intimate company of a pencil sharpener.

The wee one has only been at school for a sum total of two months, but I hate to think just how many pencils have been literally whittled away to nothing.  Incredible it is.  Still, he certainly seems to be colouring his way towards knowledge, and his teachers seem to be willing too, which is good.

So what has Italy’s inability to afford toilet rolls and paint got to do with my son’s first few steps in school? Be patient, I’ll come to this.  Actually, before whining, let me say that Italian primary schools, and their staff – when they are not striking, that is – seem to be excellent.  The nursery school was very well run too.

There are, however, a couple of aspects of Italian primary schools which I find weird. Yes, here come the toilet rolls, and the paint.

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Research in Italy: Hidden Brainpower

Italy seems to have something of an aversion towards research, unless it is absolutely essential, that is.  Behind the scenes though, research is being carried out in Italy.  I know, I’ve heard about plenty of examples of Italy’s hidden brainpower.

For some Italian businesses research is not regarded as being essential to business development, probably because it tends to be regarded as being too slow a process, too time consuming, and too darn costly.  Obtaining a return on investment is not guaranteed either.  It is probably the time gap between research and return on investment which puts businesses in Italy off, and is why the country devotes only 1.1% of its GDP to research activities, whereas the European average is 1.8%.

Outwardly, it looks as though Italy is a little behind the rest of Europe in terms of research, but this needn’t be the case.  If one digs a little deeper, and one knows Italy perhaps a little better than others, one may discover that research is being carried out in Italy, even if what is being done is not officially counted as being research.

Recently I’ve been doing some research into developing some new training courses, but I have had a problem.

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Italian News Roundup late-April 2009

As usual, there is plenty going on in Italy at the moment.  This is just a brief summary of some of the stories which have caught my little eye over the last couple of weeks or so.

Abruzzo Earthquake

The recent earthquake down in the Abruzzo region of Italy is still generating a lot of media attention, and most of Italy’s big name politicians are getting in on the act.  Just last night, there was Prime Minister Berlusconi, along with Finance Minister Tremonti, and Education Minister Gelmini all at the same press conference outlining how Italy’s government plans to sort out the chaos down in the quake hit zone.

The Italian government is talking of around a reconstruction budget of some 8 billion Euros, although it is not too clear where all the cash will come from.  Berlusconi has stated that extra taxes will not be used to gather funds, but he may well do an about turn on this once he realises just how little cash there is in government coffers, and remembers that Italy has a huge level of public debt.

One also wonders what will happen to the planned reforms to Italy’s education system seeing as funding is likely to be channelled to Abruzzo.  Then again, and as RAI 3’s excellent investigative documentary program Report highlighted last Sunday, a little clever reorganisation could save the Italian education system a lot of money.  Some of the craziness in Italy’s education system is beyond belief. Read more

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