Liceo Scientifico - History

History

Liceo scientifico was created with the Gentile reform in 1923. Originally, students attended the school for four years and the curriculum was derived from that of the ginnasio, a humanity-centered type of secondary school similar to today's liceo classico.

This meant that, despite its name, the liceo scientifico had more teaching hours dedicated to Latin language and literature than mathematics. Moreover, students that completed the school were not allowed to progress to university courses in the humanities or jurisprudence, while students that completed the ginnasio were allowed to progress to any university course. These limitations drew several criticisms from the academic world.

The curriculum and structure underwent several changes over the course of the following century. Most importantly, in 1969 the ban preventing students of the liceo scientifico from entering many university courses was finally lifted. In 1991 and again later in 1995, school reforms introduced an alternative curriculum, Piano Nazionale di Informatica (PNI, literally National Plan of Computer Studies). The new curriculum differed from the old one not only by including computer programming, but also in having more teaching hours dedicated to mathematics and physics. This new curriculum was optional for schools to implement. Other alternative curricula were also made available for schools to choose from, such as a bilingual curriculum introducing the teaching of a second language in addition to English.

The latest major reform, in 2008, eliminated all previous alternative curricula. It significantly increased the teaching hours dedicated to scientific subjects and decreased those dedicated to Latin. In addition to the standard curriculum, it also created the alternative curriculum opzione scienze applicate (applied sciences option) which involves more teaching and laboratory hours for the sciences and does not include Latin.