The Higher Technical Education Diploma (ITS Diploma) is awarded at the end of a course lasting a total of 1800 learning hours and after passing a final competence evaluation exam. Besides, ITS pathways are linked to job-related high technology production areas divided into specific sectorial fields.
ITS represents the non-academic tertiary education and training sector, which aims at meeting the needs of companies for skilled technicians who, with their new and higher technological competences, can promote innovation and manage organization and production processes.
ITS curricula are based on a set of standard topics foreseen at national level.
Some of these are common to all professional profiles while other are sector specific:
Linguistic, communication and relational skills, scientific and technological sciences, economics, organizational and managerial multi- level competences are common to all the professional roles related to the higher technical education courses;
Technical and professional sector specific skills are typical of each nationally-defined professional role of Higher Technician;
Consistently with the overall learning outcomes approach, ITS pathways are divided into training modules, i.e. single clusters of lessons leading to a specific set of competences.