Italy to abolish HE accreditation

Mario Monti, Italy’s new Prime Minister, has launched a numberof liberalization reforms ever since he took office last November.One target is the higher education market. The Italian cabinetdecided recently that it wants to abolish the legal validity of alldegrees in order to increase competition among universities.
Leaving it to the market
Following the American approach, the value of university degreeswould no longer be determined legally, but simply by the reputationof the individual university. Italy’s Education Minister, FrancescoProfumo, argues that the current official accreditation is not fitto evaluate nuances between different universities.
Part of this accreditation process takes into account studysuccess. This, however, is unreasonable given that universitiesdiffer substantially in the extent that they give out goodgrades.
After wide-spread protests by professors, university officialsand students, Monti decided to
State needs to guarantee a minimum level ofquality
Higher education stakeholders, meanwhile, remain skeptical.Andrea Ichino from the University of Bologna, and DanieleTerlizzese, economist at the Italian central bank
ESU Chairman, Allan Päll, further
