GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE ITS TIRRENO

The Istituto Tecnico Superiore (ITS) Tirreno – Nuove Tecnologie della Vita (New Technologies for Life) – is a Higher Technical Institute created in 2012. It is partly funded by the Italian Ministry of Education and partly by the Calabria Region. It offers 2-year single-cycle higher education for highly skilled technicians in four sectors::

• Production and maintenance of biomedical equipment and devices
• Industrial and environmental biotechnology
• Production and maintenance of means of transport and/or related infrastructure
• Innovative management of tourist – accommodation facilities and cultural activities

Courses last four semesters for a total amount of 1960 hours, including theoretical lessons, lab activities and 600 hour company traineeship. At the end of the two-year programme, after passing a final exam, students receive a Diploma di Tecnico Superiore, an Advanced Technician Diploma, equivalent to the EQF level 5. Access to courses is reserved to young and adult people holding an upper secondary education certificate.

Currently we have two classes for each course for a total of 100 students.

The Higher Technical Institute is organized as a foundation including universities, companies, schools, training institutions and local authorities.

The ITS Tirreno’s founding members include UNICAL (the University of Calabria), the University “Magna Grecia” in Catanzaro, SIT –Sordina Iort Technologies Ltd, ASI (the Italian Space Agency) , CNIM – The Italian National Committee for Maintenance, Confindustria Cosenza (The General Confederation of Italian Industry in Cosenza), some clinical tests labs and other educational and industrial subjects.

The legal head office of the Foundation is located in the municipality of Fuscaldo, province of Cosenza, in southern Italy. The course venues, properly equipped with technological infrastructures, are located in the Calabria Region, easily accessible by public transportation and close to many facilities including banks, ATM, post offices, hotels, restaurants, sport and health centers etc.

The lab activities included in the course syllabuses are carried out at the ITS venue, as well as at the university of Calabria and the University “Magna Grecia” in Catanzaro, both being founding partners of the ITS foundation.

To access courses, applicants are selected through a call for applications. The selection committee, whose members come from universities, companies, the Ministry of Education and the Calabria Region, selects the best 25 candidates for each course, who, after passing a written test on some important subjects (biology, chemistry, mathematics, physics, English, computer science), sit for an oral interview aimed at finding out their inclinations, motivation, interests. Each student receives, on loan from the Foundation, a computer, which he/she will return at the end of the course.

Teacher selection is carried out through a notice of selection published on the website of the foundation. The selected teachers have to attend a training course, after which they undergo a test assessing their skills on the course topics. 50% of teachers have to be chosen from the world of work; some come from the academic world.

Digital teaching and assessment materials are available for each course on the E-learning Platform of the Foundation. Each student, with personalized access, can make use of the published materials. Learning activities are enhanced by a web-conferencing system for distance learning, online seminars and lectures.

The end-of course and traineeship assessments take place according to the guidelines defined by the Scientific and Technical Committee (STC) of the foundation.

The ITS Tirreno implements the European Credit Transfer and accumulation System (ECTS) in order to improve transparency and comparability of its curriculum and qualifications, thus facilitating academic recognition, enhancing the quality of student mobility and promoting key aspects of the European dimension in Higher Education.

In order to foster the international dimension of students’ education, ITS Tirreno holds at the moment the Erasmus Charter for Higher Education 2014-2020 (ECHE) and has applied for ECHE 2021 – 2027.