Over the last 20 years the Italian education system has lived an intense and tormented epoch of reforms and radical changes culminated in the introduction of school autonomy and decentralisation. Such institutional pressures have created, in the Italian school system, contradictory effects at an individual and organizational levels leading to employee resistance or indifference on one hand, and investment in training for developing coping strategies, on the other. The Italian school system comprises of teachers–the largest professional group of workers within public schools, who are also viewed as individual participants of change. Managing professionals and their professions is increasingly gaining momentum as organisations realize the importance of attracting and retaining key talent and human capital.
Managing change in a professional setting such as in the case of school teachers, can be difficult as the nature of their profession affords them high autonomy, paradoxically, at the same time, there is a low level of observed cohesiveness amongst the teachers.

The principal institutional bodies governing the Italian education system are: at national level, The Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR, Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della ricerca) at regional level, the Regional School Authorities and the Regions; at local level, the Provinces, Municipalities and schools. In Italy, the responsibility of educational system general administration is the Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR). The MIUR is organised into three Departments:

–– Department for the Education and Training System, responsible for the general organisation of the school system;
–– Department for the Planning and Management of Human, Financial and Capital Resources, responsible for financial policy, procurement, administrative human resources in schools, and managing information systems;
–– Department for Higher Education and Research, responsible for higher Education.

Case Study Questions 

Q1. Describe the nature of institutional changes in the Italian schooling system.
How did these have an impact on the school in question?
Q2. Explain the importance of teacher’ competences for the achievement of educational goals. What are the principal competences that the teachers of the school in question should possess to keep the pace with the ongoing changes?
Q3. Students may first discuss the nature of the stressors and then identify from a list the principal stressors for the teacher of the school in question.
Q4. Evaluate the effectiveness of the training intervention. Did it work? Why/why not?
Q5. Would you have done anything differently? Provide a rationale for your choices.