TO study in Italy if you are a foreigner is exciting. If there is a student exchange program near you, then grab it. Italy is one of the most opportune countries to visit and if you’re a high school student, you will greatly be envied by your classmates if you have visited a country that has a very large imprint in history. If you are coming from a European country, it will be easier for you to enter Italy. You don’t need a visa to get there because any citizen from a European country can automatically cross into another one without the need of a visa. And because Italy is landlocked to France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia, European exchange students can easily cross there because there are no more border outposts in the boundaries of Italy thanks to the Schengen agreement which Italy is a signatory.

Italy’s education system is probably one of the oldest in Europe with present curricular systems extending as far back as 1859, the same year that the Italian republic was born. Because of this system put in place, literacy rate in the country is relatively high at 98.5 percent. The only significant addition is a European Union ruling which makes it compulsory for high school students to acquire a second European language. Europe is a small continent and each country uses a different language. The current Italian minister of education is Luigi Fioroni and the current minister for universities is Fabio Mussi.

Italian education is funded annually to the tune of 66 million euros. There are currently 386,000 students in Italy in all levels – elementary, high school, college and post-graduate studies. High schools in Italy are classified into three – liceo, technical and professional. Liceo schools are the regular schools and they are in turn divided into four – liceo classico, liceo scientifico, liceo linguistico and liceo artisico. Liceo classico mainly caters to Catholic students because they offer Catholic studies in their curriculum. But this is not a problem really since most Italians are Catholics.

Other subjects offered in the liceo classico are Italian culture, Greek culture, ancient Greek language, English language, history, geography, philosophy, mathematics and art. Subjects offered in a liceo scientifico are physics, geometry, calculus, biology, human physiology, psychology, chemistry, earth sciences and natural sciences. Subjects a student can choose from in a liceo linguistico are Italian, ancient Greek, German, French, Spanish and Russian. Among the subjects offered in a liceo artistico are music and art.

The technical high school meanwhile offers subjects in aeronautics, business administration and computer science. The professional high school meanwhile prepares students for regular college.

A four-academic year program in an Italian university on the other hand leads to a bachelor’s degree and as with most colleges in the world; the final two years are dedicated to a specialized field. For example, a person who is taking up medicine may venture into geriatrics, adolescence pediatrics, obstetrics or surgery. A person who is taking up communications arts may venture into journalism or filmmaking.