Giannini: money for education are investments not “expenses”

More culture for facing the challenges of growth, in line with the Lisbon Stategy of a development based on knowledge. This is the Europe imagined by Stefania Giannini, Italian Education Minister, who talked with eunews about her priorities for the Italian Semester of Presidency of the Council of The European Union. “A more educated Europe,” explained Minister Giannini, “I mean an increase of the education level in Italy and of the investments in research in Europe, boosting national networks of reasearch: these are two crucial priorities for the Semester.”

Then, the third issue, implied in each European act of the government led by Matteo Renzi: “We need to make everyone understand that the resources allocated by Member States for education are not expenses,” underlined Giannini, “they are investments, and they need to be in the right entry if balance sheets then.” That is, they cannot be listed as entries in computing deficit.

What about Italy? We’re lagging behind in this race to education…“Twenty years ago we had half of the graduates we have today,” said the Minister, who had been Dean of the University for Foreigners in Perugia for ten years before becoming a member of the Parliament, “hence there has a been a significant improvement.” Still, the Lisbon Strategy on Growth indicates the target of 49% of graduates, and we are only at 18%…“That is a very ambitious target, but almost impossible to realised, even from a technical point of view,” replied Giannini. “Still, we need to keep on trying.” Education, explained the Minister, can give people “a higher social dignity…you need to have a generation ready to fight social unease.”

The key for this path in Italy is “the right to study, the right to study, the right to study: ‘suitable without scholarship’ need to disappear” – students winning an economic aid for their education, who are not granted it because there is no funding available. “We have allocated 170 million euro”on this so far, said Giannini. At the same time, “it is necessary for university to be better qualified, they are starting to be listed around the 150th entry in international rankings,” said Giannini. “We do not need everyone making everything,” she added, “we need to reward specialisation.”

(In cooperation with Letizia Pascale)