Complacency Not An Option

For a creative society like Italy, getting complacent threatens to erode its imagination.

Italian officials need to be on the cutting edge of ideas in order to keep up with its talented population. It's a tough gig but someone has to do it.

You can't sit around and hope a 'Ferrari' will fall onto their lapse. You need to tap into your resources.

One way to do this is to expand a nation's horizon by exposing itself to what's going on outside its own borders.

It's a great way to keep a keen eye on the competition.

In soccer, a great soccer manager sees what's successful and incorporates it into his system.

It's no different with countries.

Alas, while Italians show a remarkable interest in other countries, its institutions are not tapping into this potential.

"A study conducted by Italy’s Communications Authority (AgCom) and promoted by the Telecom Italia Foundation has found that only 53 percent of Italian schools offer initiatives aimed at internationalization, a figure that compares unfavourably to the remaining five EU countries included in the survey. According to the study entitled “The i-generation: adolescents, school and internationalization in six EU countries”, 97 percent of the schools in Germany, 89 percent in Spain, 88 percent in Poland, 81 percent in France and 79 percent in Sweden had signed up to an international project. However, in the half of Italian schools that did offer an internationalization activity, the level of participation of students was higher than all other countries apart from Germany. 
According to the Secretary-General of the Telecom Italia Foundation, the solutions required to improve the level of internationalization of Italian schools include the implementation of ever more innovative and challenging initiatives, especially with regard to the use of new technologies."