Job training schools at the Giornata della Tecnica: a contribution for a history of professional education in the years of fascism

Abstract

A scant literature is devoted to analyse the evolution of vocational education in Italy during Fascism. The article aims at addressing (even partially) to the issue using a particular kind of sources: the publication the Provincial Scholastic Deputy had to write in 1941 for celebrating the “Giornata della Tecnica” (Day for the promotion of Technical Culture), introduced by Fascism in 1940 for prompting enrolment in technical institutes and, almost of all, in the so-called scuole d’avviamento professionale (job training schools). Reformed since 1929, the scuole d’avviamento professionale were a three-year post-elementary course whose enrolments highly expanded during 1930s. Scholastic reform planned in 1939 – the so-called “Carta della Scuola” – aimed at abolishing this school. At its place, were planned two kinds of vocational schools, the scuola professionale (vocational school) and the scuola artigiana (craft school): both of them would have granted to their pupils less possibilities to change their social status than the scuola d’avviamento did. Publications analysed show a twofold attitude towards these institutes: some headmasters presented them as a way for pupils to achieve higher level of education; however, scholastic officer regarded them as a “diverted” school, which encouraged pupils to flee from their social and territorial environment.