The VET system in Lombardy (Italy): a first pedagogical outlook

There are some great challenges facing the Italian youth population: among them, a high rate of early leavers from education and training (15%) and NEET for 18-24 years old (22,5%). In this context, the Lombardy Region (about 10 million of inhabitants) has a lower rate of early school leavers (12,9%) and NEET (13,1%). One of the key aspects for these better numbers, compared to the national ones, is the orientation of the VET system towards excellence. In Italy, over time there has been increasing decentralization of responsibility, and regional authorities are now exclusively responsible for planning a vocational education system for secondary, higher and continuing training within and according to a set of national general principles. For these reasons VET system in Italy is extremely various and changes from region to region. The VET system in Lombardy includes numerous secondary vocational schools, but also 22 higher vocational education institutions (ITS – Istituti Tecnici Superiori), nearly 25% of the national total. The paper aims to describe the VET system in Lombardy, explain which were the main lines of historical evolution in the recent past and provide an overlook of the main pedagogical paradigms, as work-based learning, that will drive the system today and tomorrow.