“We cannot ignore keeping experience and relationships at the center, the unique factors that can guarantee added value to the growth of skills, technological tools can enhance the offer in presence – says Ferruccio Resta, rector of the Politecnico di Milano and president of the Conference of Rectors (Crui) -. What decides the quality of a true integration is the point of equilibrium that knows how to integrate the experiential value with the digital transformation “.
A balance that must start from a high quality digital offer, not a mere replica of the traditional lesson, integrated with teaching that focuses on interaction and group work. “Digital – adds Andrea Bonaccorsi, professor of management engineering at the University of Pisa, former director of Anvur and putative father of the” third mission “of the university – allows to separate the two souls of training: a more acting, top-down, of transmission of knowledge, and one of classroom interaction, which has so far remained in the background, which now can and must become a way of real learning, an essential tool in which the interaction between student and teacher is transformed into a source of new learning. If the first component is transferred in appropriate digital ways, this can free up resources to allow teachers to focus on the second, creating new and unique forms of interaction on problematic paths to be faced together, through unique and non-replicable processes ».
The experience is not only that in the classroom, but also that linked to the territory, which can increase the value of the offer compared to the online competition. «Each university must start from the awareness of its own positioning. Then it is a question of enhancing the opportunities of the training ecosystem at the local level – continues Resta – but also of guaranteeing an overall attractiveness as a territorial system. We need to start from the principle of territory as a destination for training with comprehensive policies that involve all actors, from local authorities to the government to companies, in order to intercept a growing student mobility ».
The transformation of the training offer must therefore go hand in hand with a competitive labor market, adequate skills, open industries, a high welfare and quality of life. In short, a university inserted in a more attractive country system as a whole.
Only in this way will it be possible to contain the offensive of foreign universities, but also, in perspective, of Big Tech which is very attracted toeducation. In all likelihood by leveraging more specific offers on the professionalizing aspect. «The continuous training segment – underlines Bonaccorsi – is certainly more vulnerable in the face of a structured offer by external agents, with smaller and more flexible but certified training units. Moreover, higher technical training linked to vocational skills is also likely to be discovered, especially in the manufacturing and tertiary sectors where Italy would have an absolute need for skills that cannot be delegated to the university “.