School's Out: What Nobody Tells You About Education in Italy

Every family arriving in Italy often asks the same question: which school? Public or private? Liceo (classic high school) or technical? And to be fair, the answer is never simple — and navigating it can be overwhelming for the best of us because we all want the best for our kids and it all feels so high stakes.

In this episode, Georgette and Valentina do a full breakdown of how the Italian school system actually works, from nido (nursery) to maturità (getting your high school diploma), including the bits that nobody warns you about: the brutal homework jump between primary and scuola media, the persistent stigma around vocational education, why Valentina has been a class representative since Eduardo was two years old, and why the WhatsApp group chat for school parents is, in Georgette's words, what Dante had in mind when he penned the Inferno.

They also get into what the OECD data actually says about Italian student performance (spoiler: better than the reputation on some things, worse on others), why eight-year-olds are already using AI to summarise books, what Georgette's dad handing out American flag stickers at school has to do with Italian education reform, and whether being a philosopher might be the most AI-proof job of the future.

A great listen whether you're raising a child here, working inside the system, or just trying to understand why your Italian colleague still brings up their maturità grade from 2003!