NARIC guide on Higher Education Systems in the European Union

ISEFs offer three-year diploma courses, based on a combination of
scientific and cultural education with technical and practical training.
University institutions
Italian university education — whose fundamental purpose consists ‘in promoting the progress of science and supplying the
general culture as well as the specific scientific knowledge which is afterwards needed for the practice of the professions’ —
is based on a centralised system of regulations and provisions, the responsibility for university education policy and planning
being shared between parliament and government.
In 1989 all university institutions were granted a considerable degree of autonomy thanks to the passing of parliamentary act
No 168, which, while establishing the Ministero dell’Università e della Ricerca scientifica e tecnologica (MURST) as a
separate ministry, entirely independent of the Ministry of Education, also indicated the various university functions falling
within the competence of individual institutions ( 1 ).
Act 168/1989 states that universities enjoy didactic, scientific, organisational and financial autonomy; they are individually
responsible for laying down their own statutes as well as study regulations.
Therefore, Italian universities may be described as public law corporations endowed with autonomy in the management of
their own affairs, even if they still have to comply with a few general rules fixed by the relevant central authorities: it is a way
of harmonising institutional and organisational diversity within a national framework.
University institutions may be called università (universities) or politecnici (technical universities) or istituti universitari
(university institutes). The division into three typologies does not imply any difference in the
quality of education or in the types of degrees which may be awarded; it simply makes reference to a different number of
faculties within the institutions themselves: universities normally embrace the full range of studies, whereas politecnici, which
are specialised in technical subjects, comprise the two faculties of engineering and architecture. University institutes generally
offer only a particular area of learning, which means just one or two faculties.
In relation to their legal status and financial resources, there are two main categories of university institutions, i.e. those which
have been directly established and are almost exclusively supported by the State (that is to say State universities, usually
called università degli studi), and those which have been set up by independent entities and do not rely on public funding,
except for some contributions which may be granted by the State for teaching in them (they are generally named libera
università, meaning non-State, i.e. private, and independent universities). State universities are created by parliamentary acts,
whereas those independent universities which have been legally recognised by State authorities are granted the status of public
law corporations by individual decrees of the President of the Republic, which also approve their statutes. The teaching
activity of such free universities is therefore subject to the general university regulations; consequently, all their degrees, when
falling within the official university system, rank equal to those awarded by State universities.
A few university institutions set themselves certain particular objectives, defined in their statutory rules along with the general
university legislation. Such institutions have therefore also to comply with specific regulations which are unique to them. For
example, the specific objective of the Oriental University Institute in Naples is the teaching of African and Asiatic languages,
while the Naval University Institute (Naples) provides its students with education and training for the practice of those
professions which are directly related to the maritime industry and trade.
A special standing in the Italian university tradition is enjoyed by two renowned institutions at Pisa, the Scuola normale and
the Scuola superiore di studi universitari e di perfezionamento, which set themselves the objective of training young
academics for advanced scientific research and teaching ( 1 ).
Finally, to complete the picture of university education one more sector should be mentioned, that of educazione a distanza
(distance tuition), which has been developing for the last 13 years. Distance courses, so far implemented, fall within the
category of short-cycle studies at first university level (i.e. university diploma courses) or that of post-Lauream short
programmes (e.g. refresher courses for professional teachers, advanced annual courses in specific disciplines).