ALMALAUREA CONFERENCE 2007

The 9th Graduate Profile Report comes at a particularly interesting time for Italian universities. Between the 190,000 graduates investigated by AlmaLaurea (class 2006) from 44 universities, for the first time, the amount of the post Bologna reform first level graduates prevail over the number of the pre reform old degrees alumni.

Together with the 100.000 first level graduates we count also more than 17.000 former students of the second level, that are the first second level “pure” students, belonging to the reformed University system since their enrolment at the University. The profiles of these post-reform graduates, make it possible to conduct significant checks on the state of progress of the university reform.

The survey has been possible thanks to the membership of a growing number of universities that have made available a wealth of reliable and timely documentation, particularly useful to the Ministry of Education and Research (MiUR), to the National Agency for the University System and Research (ANVUR), to the university governing bodies and assessment committees, as well as to school managers and staff engaged in the delicate task of guidance into higher education.

Aspects analysed

Based on the study of approximately one hundred different variables, the Report has produced up-to-date profiles for the 190,000 ALMALAUREA graduates who completed their degrees between 1st January and 31st December 2006. This 2007 edition of the Profile follows the structure adopted in previous years and is broken down into university, discipline, faculty, degree course/category, gender and type of graduate (worker-student, student-worker, student).

The distinction between pure graduates (i.e. those who enrolled directly on a degree course offered by the reformed university) and hybrid graduates (i.e. former pre-reform students who subsequently transferred to a post-reform degree course), introduced last year only for the first level graduates has been extended this year to the whole post Bologna Reform higher education system.

Among the graduate characteristics investigated in the Report, the following are of particular interest:

• age at graduation and enrolment
• examination and graduation grades
• regularity of completion times and duration of academic study
• parents’ qualifications
• social class of the family
• type and mark of high school certificate
• regularity of class attendance
• study abroad periods
• training periods or in-house company training experiences
• time taken to complete thesis/final examination
• assessment of university experience
• sustainability of academic workload
• foreign language skills
• IT skills
• intention to pursue postgraduate study
• preferred employment sector
• characteristics of job aspired to.

For the first time, the survey also explores the following:

• The reasons behind the choice of specific degree course
• The experience of graduates enrolled at the University in a mature age
• Foreign students Study and life conditions at the Italian Universities

Between training and work: Report on the learning and/or employment of the first level graduates of 2005

To offer a complete information, useful to monitor first level graduate job condition and to provide the necessary knowledge elements for the redesign of university courses as foreseen by the Ministerial Decree 270/2004, AlmaLaurea Consortium launched in 2006 an experimental survey who involved all first level Italian graduates of the solar year 2005 (around 80.000), belonging to the 41 AlmaLaurea Universities.

The survey, recently concluded, has merged two different methodologies of data record: CAWI (Computer Assisted Web Interviews) and CATI (Telephone Assisted Interviews). This experimentation offers the possibility to analyze learning and occupation outcomes for every university belonging to AlmaLaurea also broken down into study discipline (degree classes) and, where numbers will allow to, degree course.

Among the investigated features: study prosecution through the University second level enrolment, reasons to continue or not the university education, participation to other training activities, job conditions (working, looking/not looking for a job), covered work position features (type of contract, effectiveness, revenues).