LEONARDO SCIASCIA is situated in Agrigento, Sicily, Italy and is an Economic and Technological Secondary school with students in the age range 14-19.
It offers a diverse educational syllabus which includes an economic sector with courses in 1) Administration, Finance and Marketing, 2) Management Information Systems 3) Tourism, and a technological sector with a course in Information Technology and Telecommunications. Besides, evening courses offer opportunity for adults to obtain diplomas. Some students, mainly from North African countries, are migrants of 1st or 2nd generation. Teaching staff is 100 (for 600 pupils)
The economy of the province is mainly seasonal, based on tourism and satellite activities. It is an area of great potentiality, boasting UNESCO heritage sites and a beautiful coastline, but it lacks solid competences to turn these resources into durable wealth for the local community. Moreover, these very assets involve a great effort for their protection and preservation in a sustainable perspective.
As a consequence our secondary school operates in a situation of great challenge, being one of the few educational agencies that could give a significant contribution to the cultural and economic development of its population. For most of our students our school represents the only access to quality education and knowledge, beyond the easy access to Internet and social media superficial fleeting information.
Being often unaware of the demands of today’s globalized world, our students (and very often their families too) fail to understand the capital importance of citizenship competences. The development of a global/local awareness has therefore become our priority over the last years and the present project fits our educational plan. Sustainability is a key concept that all teachers of our school embed in their ordinary teaching practice and we have also dedicated specific activities to the topic. Sustainable tourism is, for example, a core concept in the tourism course, with visits and cooperation with local sustainable touristic organizations, while the Administration course aims at the achievement of entrepreneurial skills for the development of the local community.
This project would greatly contribute in making the students focus on the issues of today’s globalized world, that are the problems of their community: social and gender inequality, exclusion, difficult integration and social hardship, poverty, environmental damage. Through this project, we raise their level of empowerment as individuals, to help them become responsible citizens.
In order to achieve this result, we involve local authorities and volunteer groups and organizations, that already cooperate with our school in many activities.
Key person: Dir. Patrizia Marino. and Erasmus+ coordinator Maria Mangiaracina (substitute: Deputy Head Elena Chiarelli)
The school participated in Comenius. Many activities supported the internat. process. Teachers and staff have developed planning, admin. and organ. skills.