Piano Scuola 4.0: the new advanced learning environments

We are just a few days from the first major deadline for all Italian upper-secondary schools, busy submitting the preliminary projects required to obtain the PNRR funds for upgrading classrooms and labs.

This is a powerful intervention that commits funds at a value never seen before in history: more than €1.5 billion, between new projects and projects already in progress.

The goal is the creation of new innovative learning environments, which will follow two investment streams:

• Transformation of existing classrooms (Next Generation Classrooms)
• Creation of labs for the digital professions of the future (Next Generation Labs)

If you are a teacher or school principal busy preparing the projects and the funding application, you have come to the right place: one of the things we do well is precisely the design and realisation of innovative learning environments.

For us, this scenario looks very similar to the one created in 2016 with the MIUR Atelier Creativi call, which led to the realisation of more than 8,000 Fab Labs in Italian secondary schools.

On that occasion, Chirale delivered hundreds of projects all over Italy, bringing the principles of digital fabrication into schools, contributing to the definition of a new lab-based teaching approach.

Our model was analysed by INDIRE, the research body of MIUR, and was recommended as best practice for all projects of this kind — see for example “Fare Didattica in Spazi Flessibili – INDIRE, Leonardo Tosi, Giunti Scuola Editore, 2019” and “Spazi educativi e architetture scolastiche: linee e indirizzi internazionali – INDIRE, Samuele Borri, Laura Galimberti, Ed. INDIRE 2016”.

The current situation, however, is very different — and offers far more interesting opportunities for schools and for Italy.

First, the 2016 programme had significant but limited funds, which allowed the creation of centres of excellence in every Italian region, but with a focus on primary education and on a selective basis in relation to the projects submitted.

The Piano Scuola 4.0, on the contrary, allocates much more significant funds to the entire upper-secondary school system.

The amounts for the creation of the new labs (Next Generation Labs) are substantial — €126,000 for licei and €164,000 for Technical Institutes — and cover all schools.

These amounts make it possible to build cutting-edge learning environments and fit within the PNRR’s goal of radically innovating the school system, with particular focus on strengthening the Technical-Vocational Institutes, which will be tasked with training the technicians of the future, destined to work in the new Industry 4.0 scenario.

In addition, technologies have evolved and the context is entirely different from 2016.

Technologies such as 3D Printing, desktop fabrication, control microelectronics and collaborative robotics are by now well-established in many small- and medium-sized companies.

Artificial Intelligence and Computing have made huge strides, and solutions and tools for Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality have appeared on the market.

In the last year, most of the more innovative industries had Extended Reality technologies in-house, applied to plant control in high-risk conditions and to vocational training and technical assistance.

The past decade was marked by the advent of digital fabrication — that is, the entry of digital IT technologies into the world of machine tools; the new decade is marked above all by the use of new technologies to virtualise environments.

The challenge for big industry is currently the creation of so-called “Digital Twins” of machines, plants and entire factories.

3D digital models of infrastructures, to be used for monitoring and controlling their real counterparts but also for R&D activities, optimisation of production processes and redefinition of supply chains.

The new advanced learning environments will need to match these scenarios. The available funds and the technology product offering make it possible to realise cutting-edge facilities.

Since 2020 our Digital Innovation Hub of Rome hosts tools, machines and technologies that let companies experience their future before investing in the 4.0 Transformation.

This wealth of technologies, experience and knowledge of industrial sectors — combined with our experience in teaching and in designing labs for education — is a valuable resource we are making available to the schools and public administrations who have come to us for support in their innovation projects.