For years, in these pages, UD has followed the corruptions and absurdities of the Italian university system, nicely summarized at the end of the article from which I’ve drawn this post’s title:
Nepotism and closed-shop recruitment of staff have largely been blamed.
There are departments in some Italian universities where much of the faculty shares the same last name. They’re one big extended family. The department was founded, as it were, by Nonno Rossi, and he’s made sure since then that it provides income for all the Rossis.
Anyway, here’s an Italian university – the Politecnico in Milan – that has decided to switch the language of all of its courses to English. The rector explains that this will
“contribute to the growth of the country”. He said the strategy would attract brain power and yield the high-quality personnel that would “respond to the needs of businesses”.