School enrolments will only be made possible online. The digitisation era takes a step forward. Starting from January, 21st, school enrolments will be made possible only online, by filling in the application forms on the following website: www.iscrizioni.istruzione.it. This initiative was taken after its launch last year, slowly letting schools and parents to adjust. This was decreed by the ministerial memorandum n° 96 of December, 17^th 2012 in which the Ministry set a guideline concerning school enrolments for the next academic year. The deadline is set on February, 28th 2013. However, the future schools to be chosen (or the former ones), will have to offer a support service to families without any computer devices.

On the whole, the memorandum  follows what was already stipulated last year, the only variation is that no exceptions are made for Comprehensive schools where, in the past, enrolments were made as a matter of course, whereas starting from January, 21^st they will have to follow the memorandum and have them done online: "however, it is understood, that students coming from a primary school of the same Comprehensive school building have the priority over students coming from other schools "

In the meanwhile, the Italian National Statistical Institute – Istat published some worrying figures, the number of high-school and university students keeps on dropping.

The students enrolled in 2010 were 8,965,822, about 2,200 less than the previous year, and this for the third year in a row. The highest drop is associated to high-school students (-24,145). The schooling rate remains around one hundred per cent for primary and middle schools, whereas high schools are experiencing a constant slow-down, from 92.3% in 2009/2010 to 90%. High school curricular careers remain difficult (the number of students failing their courses amounts to 7%), in fact the main selection is made after the first year where the percentage of student fails goes up to 19.1%.

Last but not least, the number of students enrolling at university in 2010/2011 amounted to 288,000, that is about 6,400 less than the year before (-2.2%). The negative trend which started in 2004/2005, is therefore confirmed. The number of new enrolments is even lower then the one registered in the 90’s.

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