Italian university switches to English

By Sean Coughlan, BBC News education correspondent 16 May 2012 Last updated at 09:49 GMT

Milan is crowded with Italian icons, which makes it even more of a cultural earthquake that one of Italy's leading universities — the Politecnico di Milano — is going to switch to the English language. The university has announced that from 2014 most of its degree courses — including all its graduate courses be taught and assessed entirely in English rather than Italian.

The waters of globalisation are rising around higher education — and the university believes that if it remains ltalian-speaking it risks isolation and will be unable to compete as an international institution. "We strongly believe our classes should be international classes — and the only way to have international classes is to use the English language", says the university's rector, Giovanni Azzone.

COLIGHLANI S. Disponível em. www.bbc.co.uk. Acesso em: 31 jul. 2012

As línguas têm um papel importante na comunicação entre pessoas de diferentes culturas. Diante do movimento de internacionalização no ensino superior, a universidade Politecnico di Milano decidiu