Italian university switches to English

[muriel_volestrangler]

Which makes it even more of a cultural earthquake that one of Italy's leading universities - the Politecnico di Milano - is going to switch to the English language.

The university has announced that from 2014 most of its degree courses - including all its graduate courses - will be taught and assessed entirely in English rather than Italian.
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"We strongly believe our classes should be international classes - and the only way to have international classes is to use the English language," says the university's rector, Giovanni Azzone.
...
This is one of the oldest universities in Milan and a flagship institution for science, engineering and architecture, which lays claim to a Nobel prize winner. Almost one in three of all Italy's architects are claimed as graduates. So this is a significant step.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17958520

English-only postgraduate courses at Milan Polytechnic spark protest

The Politecnico di Milano, one of Italy’s leading technical universities, has announced that from the beginning of the 2014 academic year, all MSc and PhD courses will be taught exclusively in English.

But some of the institution’s professors oppose the switch to English from Italian, and 285 have signed a petition to the rector.

While the university already offers several courses in English, as do other Italian institutions, the move to drop Italian entirely in favour of English is a first among Italy’s public universities. The institution will also be investing €3.2 million (US$4.1 million) to attract faculty including 15 lecturers, 30 to 35 post-doctorates and 120 visiting professors.

The decision is part of the the university’s internationalisation strategy, which has seen a 40% increase in requests for admission by foreign students this year. Foreign nationals comprise around 10% of Milano's 37,000 students, and the majority (55%) come from non-English speaking countries such as Brazil, Russia, India, China, Vietnam, Turkey and Iran.

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20120509174302914

Surprising to see this in a sizeable country with a single language like Italy.

[Blue_Tires]

1. What's next? Adopting English-style football in Serie A?

The whole country would look like a warzone if that was suggested

And I don't know how big this university is with the U.S. study abroad programs, but I'm thinking that could have been a factor as well...

[trotsky]

2. Surprising indeed.

In the context of that last paragraph you quoted though, it makes perfect sense. English and Spanish are the closet things we have to a global language these days.