Galileo Galilei Technical Industrial Secondary School
Galileo Galilei Technical Industrial Secondary School is the oldest technical high school in Rome. It was founded in 1919, then offering three different specializing courses: Electrotechnics, Mechanics and Construction. The school immediately acquired a prestigious reputation, which is still true to this day.
Six morning courses are currently active: Electrotechnics, Automation, Telecommunications, Mechanics and Mechatronics, Aircraft Construction and an Applied Sciences Lyceum. Evening classes for working adult students are offered in the field of Electronics and Telecommunications and Mechanics and Mechatronics. All classes study English as a foreign language. The school is equipped with numerous laboratories, among which the most important are the Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Domotics Laboratory, the Robotics Laboratory and two CAD laboratories. Every classroom is furnished with a computer, interactive whiteboard and internet connection.
The school is also a CISCO local academy providing different courses for students, an ECDL Test Centre and it also collaborates with English language schools for English language certification (PET and FCE). Among the most important extra-curricular projects offered to students are a bticino project on civil and industrial electrical and networking technology and domotics, a robotics course, a domotics course, a scientific degrees course and a Building Fly Competition. The courses have won several national and international competitions. The school is certified with quality system certification by the IQNET International Certification Network Certificate ISO 9001:2008 on "Planning and delivery of educational services, training and guidance".
Located in the heart of Rome, the school is within walking distance to many of the main monuments, central railway station, underground station and bus stops. The historical Rome university, "La Sapienza" is also within minutes from the school while other universities can easily be reached by public transport.
Galileo Galilei Technical Secondary School has a student population of roughly 900 students and 130 teachers. The students are mostly male Italians while the percentage of foreign students has increased in recent years, mostly from Asia, South America and Eastern Europe. For the foreigners, the school has activated Italian language courses.
Brief introduction to the different specialisation courses at
Galileo Galilei High School
The different branches in technical secondary schools refer to the diverse production and service areas in the technological sector, with particular attention to process, product and service innovation.
In the field of Italian VET secondary schools, students from age 14 to 19 may choose different study areas hereafter called "branches" and "sub-branches".
Within the new, official framework of Italian technical secondary schools, our students are offered five different courses in the technical sector and a scientific lyceum, applied sciences sector:
- Electronics and Electrotechnics
This branch in technical high schools blends scientific and technological competences in the the field of materials, design, construction and subsequent inspection testing in productive contexts regarding electric and electronic systems, electrical systems and automation.
Our school offers two sub-branches / sectors courses:
- Electrotechnics course, which focuses on the design, production and management of civil and industrial electric systems and installations,
- Automation course, which focuses on the design, production and
management of control systems.s.
- Computer Science and Telecommunciations
This branch integrates scientific and technological competences in the field of ICT systems, information processing, applications and web technology, communication networks and apparatus.
Our school offers the following sub-branch / sector course:
- Telecommunications course, which focuses on the analysis, comparison, design, installation and management of electronic devices and instruments and telecommunications systems.
- Mechanics, Mechatronics and Energy
This branch blends scientific and technological competences in the field of mechanics,automation and energy.
Our school offers the following sub-branch /sector course:
- Mechanics and Mechatronics, which focuses, within the different production contexts, on the general themes connected with the design, production and management of apparatus and systems and the relative work organisation.
- Transportation and Logistics
This branch focuses on specific competences and work methods functional to the performance of activity inherent in the design, production and efficiency maintenance of vehicles and their relative systems/installations, and organization of logistics services.
Our school offers the following sub-branch / sector course:
- Aircraft Construction, which focuses on the construction and maintenance of the aircraft vehicle and the acquisition of professionality in the field of vehicle suitability testing and certification.
- Scientific Lyceum - Applied Sciences sector
The lyceum stresses a scientific-based approach with main focus on science, physics, chemistry and maths together with information and communication technology competence for acquisition of skills required for scientific sector university studies.
Vocational Education and Training (VET) in Italian Technical Schools
The new Italian technical secondary school curriculum, active from the 2010-2011 academic school year, is founded on the principle of equivalent training in the various courses thereby improving the different learning styles of students while simultaneously giving a complex response to the demands of the employment market. The different vocational education and training courses aim at increasing the value of the diverse inclinations of pupils, consequently helping to prevent low pupil motivation and drop out, and, likewise, ensuring the possibility of gaining a solid cultural background in order to become conscientious, active and responsabile citizens.
The renewed attention to technical education is consequently based on the decisive role of schools and culture in our society for the development of the person and also for economic and social progress. This means overcoming the past deeply-rooted cultural concept based on the primary and central importance of theoretical knowledge as opposed to practical know-how.
As in the past, technical secondary schools have helped to provide for the managerial and executive branches of the national productive system and, likewise, today their contribution is fundamental in an era of scientific and technological progress which demands intellectual ability with increasingly specific specialisations, above all in a country like Italy that has a strong manufacturing vocation.
The new demands for technical schools are, on the one hand, pupil acquisition of the necessary competences for the employment market, and on the other the ability to comprehend and apply the innovations produced by the continuous development of science and technology.
In order to become true "innovatory schools", technical secondary schools are called upon to make decisions aiming at long-lasting change while simultaneously fostering self-learning abilities, group work and continuous training. Special thought on science along with its achievements and limits, its historical evolution and its relationship with technology is, consequently, fundamental in all technical high school courses. Briefly speaking, improving scientific method and technological knowledge is fundamental inasmuch as they accustom to discipline, intellectual honesty, freedom of thought, creativity, cooperation, all key factors in an open and democratic society.
Within this context, focused on achieving the necessary competences for the employment market, the curricula retain their specificity and their pupil learning objectives but with a coherent teaching methodology based on a technical schooling outlook capable of achieving active pupil involvement and motivation. Implementation of inductive methods, participatory hands-on methodologies, intense and widespread laboratory teaching in all subjects through ICT are called for, as are project activity and school-workplace collaboration in order to develop connections with the background territory and its educational resources in business and social contexts.
Considering technological secondary schools as "innovatory schools" means viewing them as laboratories for building and shaping the future, capable of transmitting the fascination of the imagination, curiosity and research experience to team builders of products for the future, that is to say future conscientious students whose own individual, special and professional commitment aims at personal, cultural and social success. In an increasingly complex world, imagination is that extra-added value that can create something new, personal and meaningful to one's life in a just and united society.
