AlmaLaurea Conference - Naples, 22th May 2012

During the last year the signs of a deep crisis, which has affected the Italian economy, government finance and political system, have taken root, although mitigated by a greater awareness of the need to re-launch economic growth and to invest in high level education. This difficult situation has particularly affected the academic system, both in terms of direct financial support and in terms of job opportunities for the highest qualified young people. This has been confirmed by the results of the AlmaLaurea Survey on Graduates' Employment Conditions, which have been presented in March in Rome.

Development, employability and social cohesion, which were expected to derive from the centrality of the knowledge of the economic processes of the most developed countries and from fostering education, have not yet been achieved. Therefore, it is important to pursue them with a stronger effort. Strengthening the reform process of the university system, encouraging young people to invest in education, promoting the evaluation culture, improving the interaction between university and labour market and redefining the provision of educational training for those who are already permanently integrated into the labour market: these objectives might seem difficult to achieve above all because of the uncertainty characterising our future. Nevertheless they are priorities that cannot be renounced.

At this point the results of the 14^th AlmaLaurea Survey on Graduates’ Profile will be presented. The Survey involved about 215,000 graduates who have concluded their studies in 2011 in one of the 61 universities that are members of the AlmaLaurea Consortium (including 5 more universities compared to last year). Almost all (94%) have concluded their studies within the so-called “3+2” new university system introduced in 2001. Among those graduates 120,000 have achieved a 1st-level degree and over 80,000 have obtained the 2nd-level degree (almost 20,000 of them have concluded a single-cycle 2nd-level degree course).

In 2011 “pre-reform” graduates were 4% of the total (another 2% achieved the degree course in Primary Schooling Sciences, which has not been reformed.) The transition from the old university system to the new one has been concluded and the new system is now running regularly. The phase characterised by the inevitably excellent performances of those who crossed the finishing line of graduation within the several degree courses has come to an end. Therefore, the statistics presented in the report enable us to make significant comparisons as for the characteristics of the of the different study courses.

The Survey has been made possible by the increasing number of universities which have been taking part in AlmaLaurea during the last few years. These subscriptions to AlmaLaurea enabled us to obtain a wide, reliable and updated documentation which is particularly useful for a multiplicity of subjects, such as: the Ministry of Education, University and Research, the National Agency for the Evaluation of the University and research system -ANVUR, the governing bodies of universities, the university evaluation units and also for the headteachers and the staff involved in the delicate task of guiding high school students to university, as well as for high school students themselves and their families.

The over one hundred different variables enabled us to obtain an updated profile of the graduates who have their CV in the AlmaLaurea database and have graduated between 1st January and 31st December 2011. The 2012 edition of the Profile has the same structure of the previous years: university, degree subject grouping, faculty, degree course, degree course grouping, kind of graduate (studying worker, working student, student). As in the previous editions of the meeting, qualified experts will give their contribution.

After the presentation of the 14^th AlmaLaurea Survey, the meeting will be focused on the in-depth analysis of 5 topics of particular interests, such as:

• Should we rethink the mark system?
• University dropout
• Geographical mobility: from enrolment to job seeking
• Reasons for the choice of the degree course
• Pursuing postgraduate studies after the 1st-level degree

Finally, the Round Table and the conclusions will give to the participants the opportunity to make a further discussion and reflection among those who are responsible for the governance of the university system and those who call the attention to the issue of "better evaluations for better investments".