Cross-national achievement surveys and educational monitoring in Italy

This chapter provides insights into the use of cross-national achievement surveys to monitor educational outcomes and develop and implement education policies in Italy. The full roll-out of the national assessment of students and schools has taken place only over the past 10 years in Italy, and so far weak reciprocities can be reported between data from cross-national surveys and those from the national assessment programme. Furthermore, educational policies and reforms have been informed not by the findings of international assessments, but rather by multiple uncoordinated and sometimes contradictory attempts to mitigate old deficiencies in the education system without using evidence-based research capable of empirically demonstrating correlations between structural problems and defined targets. The chapter begins by introducing the Italian education system, its governance and reforms, as well as organisational shifts in the recent past. It then highlights the main performance patterns of the Italian education system in relation to international achievement surveys. A third section outlines the main features of the monitoring processes applied to the Italian education system, their marked incorporation of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment methods and limited use of policy drivers. Finally, we highlight intended and unintended outcomes that derive from recent reforms.