Overview

• Learning disparities appear as early as primary school and widen markedly in middle and upper secondary levels.
• Southern 10th-grade students trail their northeastern peers by over two years in mathematics, one of Europe’s largest regional achievement gaps.
• School type strongly influences performance, with scientific licei leading and professional institutes registering the greatest delays.
• Regions with similar socio-economic profiles exhibit divergent outcomes, showing that individual school leadership and teaching practices can mitigate or exacerbate gaps.
• The Fondazione Agnelli–Rocca report urges revising the first two years of upper secondary education to establish a common core of basic competencies across all tracks.