“Lamenting the erosion of the rule of law in Italy, a European Voice editorial (3 February 2011) highlights Italy’s recent reform concerning its non-Italian teaching staff (lettori) as ‘a particularly flagrant breach of EU law’ …” (more)
[David Petrie, President of the Association of Foreign Lecturers in Italy, 6 February]
“In 1998 the Wall Street Journal reported the lettori case as an economics story striking at the heart of Europe’s much vaunted single-market. It has taken a long time for this message to get through …” (more)
[David Petrie, President of the Association of Foreign Lecturers in Italy, 3 January]
“Thousands of students are demonstrating in Italy ahead of a Senate vote on controversial education reforms. Rome police have sealed off the area around parliament after last week’s violent protests …” (more)
[BBC News, 22 December]
“A controversial university reform bill was passed in the Italian parliament on Tuesday despite high profile protests around the country. Tens of thousands of students occupied train stations, airports, highways and even monuments such as the leaning tower of Pisa and the Coliseum, paralysing city and inter-city traffic and at times clashing with police …” (more)
[Lee Adendorff, University World News, 2 December]
“Italian students protesting at education reforms have targeted two top tourist attractions, the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Colosseum …” (more)
[BBC News, 25 November]
“Thousands of students and temporary teachers have taken part in protests in cities across Italy against education cuts and a university reform package under scrutiny in the Italian parliament, despite an eve-of-protest amendment to a budget ‘stability’ bill that will restore €1 billion (US$1.4 billion) to the higher education sector …” (more)
[Lee Adendorff, University World News, 18 November]
“Three British lecturers have been awarded damages after claiming they were illegally blocked from promotion by an Italian university because of their nationality …” (more)
[Independent, 9 October]
“The decline of Italy’s universities, none of which currently appear in the world’s top 200, is a constant source of lament among the country’s chattering classes …” (more)
[Michael Day, University World News, 3 October]
“The European Commission has requested Italy to end discriminatory conditions in competitions for university students to have access to low-rent apartments in Milan. The commission considers the Italian provisions to be in breach of EU law on free movement of workers as they require students to have lived in Italy in the preceding five years …” (more)
[University World News, 11 July]
“Science teaching in Italian universities could be crippled if tens of thousands of junior staff make good on threats to strike later this year. The ‘ricercatori’ (researchers) are protesting harsh university budget cuts and a looming reform bill, which threaten their futures …” (more)
[Alison Abbott, Nature, 30 June]
“Students from around the world are flocking to a one-of-a-kind university devoted to the slow food movement, founded nearly a quarter century ago to promote ‘good, clean and fair’ food. Nestled in the heart of the Langhe wine-producing region, near the white truffle ‘capital’ Alba, the University of Gastronomic Sciences, or UNISG, has a student body of more than 300 …” (more)
[Mathieu Gorse, University World News, 20 June]
“On 1.03.10 Claude Moraes MEP tabled this question to the European Commission: ‘EQUAL TREATMENT OF NON-ITALIAN UNIVERSITY LECTURERS IN ITALY: Since 1989, the European Court of Justice has ruled three times that Italy has failed to fulfil its obligations under the provisions of the EC Treaty guaranteeing freedom of movement for workers …'” (more)
[David Petrie: Association of Foreign Lecturers in Italy, 30 March]
“… Diego Gambetta and Gloria Origgi make the argument (previewed in this post last year) that people in Italian academia (and in Italy more generally) may not have much incentive to deviate from an equilibrium in which genial incompetence is rewarded with genial incompetence. Roughly speaking – if everyone promises high quality goods or services to each other, but everyone actually delivers low quality services to each other, this may work out to everyone’s advantage because no-body expects too much of anyone else …” (more)
[Crooked Timber, 23 March]
“The University of Padua is bust. On Friday 29 January 2010 the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Padua, Giuseppe Zaccaria, sent a letter to all his staff and students saying he can’t pay for the 12 years of arrears on salaries to 14 of his non-Italian teaching staff …” (more)
[David Petrie: Association of Foreign Lecturers in Italy, 10 February]
“I thought it was a bit rich at the time – when on 19 July 1999 The University of Bologna hosted the conference of European ministers of higher education which eventually led to the Bologna Declaration and the Bologna Process; a process aimed at creating the European Higher Education Area based on cooperation between ministries, higher education institutions, students and staff. On 12 October 1993, Law Professor and Vice-Chancellor of Bologna University, Fabio Roversi-Monaco sacked seventy-four of his foreign lecturers …” (more)
[David Petrie, Association of Foreign Lecturers in Italy, 5 February]
“The dream of teaching at ancient universities in stunning Italian towns such as Verona and Padua has proved irresistible to hundreds of British lecturers drawn by Dante and la dolce vita over the past 30 years. What they did not expect was a decades-long nightmare of low pay, denied pensions and missed promotions during a bruising brush with closed shop practices which has left them on a par with lab technicians …” (more)
[Tom Kington, Guardian, 31 January]
“At least eight students have died from the collapse of a dormitory at the University of L’Aquila in central Italy, following a powerful earthquake that struck last Monday, reports The Chronicle of Higher Education. The quake caused more than 250 deaths, thousands of injuries and the destruction of much of the city and its university. But the two main science buildings did not collapse, rescue worker Gianluca Ferrini – who is also a geologist at the university – told Chemical & Engineering News. Blue-helmeted rescue workers were still searching on Wednesday for two or three students, and many students were seriously injured …” (more)
[University World News, 12 April]
“As neo-liberal education reforms are planned across Europe, students in the continent have been taking to the streets leading to battles with riot police in several cities. On Wednesday morning, the day before the general strike over one million workers, students clashed with riot police in Paris after a demonstration over the university reforms. Universities across France have been barricaded and picketed for almost two months in a standoff over these higher education reforms. The satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaîné yesterday reported that Sarkozy wanted student protests calmed by May, fearing echoes of the student-led protests of May 1968. Seven people were arrested and 80 injured in clashes in Barcelona between police and university students on Wednesday. The clashes occurred during two city-centre protests in the northeastern Spanish city after police forced students out of a university office they had occupied since November …” (more)
[Infoshop News, 20 March]
Ninth Level Ireland 