Tutta la vita davanti (‘your whole life ahead), a recent Italian movie, opens with the voice of a young woman defending her thesis. The camera dwells on one wrinkled visage after another, until it becomes clear that the entire examining board is made up of octogenarians — and a chuckle of cynical recognition runs through the cinema audience.The retirement age for Italian university teachers is 72. Mariastella Gelmini, education minister in Silvio Berlusconis right-wing government, plans to reduce it, though only to 70. And this is just one of a host of reforms she is seeking to make to one of the worst managed, worst performing and most corrupt sectors in Italy.
Most Italians point instead to the over-weening power of the baroni (barons), or tenured professors with the power of academic life and death. Many treat their faculties as personal fiefs. Nepotism and favouritism are rife: recently news emerged of a university rector who, the day before he retired on October 31 signed a decree to make his own son a lecturer. Research by students at Federico II University in Naples found that 15 percent of teachers had a relative on the university staff. At Palermo University, as many as 230 teachers are reported to be related to other teachers.
The need for change is pressing. Five universities are, in effect, bankrupt. The system as a whole is manifestly failing the economy. Only 17 percent of Italians between 25 and 34 years of age have a tertiary qualification, compared with an OECD average of 33 percent. The main reason is a shocking dropout rate of 55 percent, the highest in the rich world.
Judging that students were being asked to stay at university for too long, Berlusconis previous government introduced optional, three-year degree courses. But employers say that graduates of these shorter courses are not good enough. Universities are not imparting enough learning within a reasonable time.
Most of Ms. Gelminis reforms will be included in two Bills that have yet to be formally published. But she won cabinet support for a initial measure to alter the selection process for university teachers and researchers in order to prevent abuses; to set aside more cash for student grants and accommodation; and to mitigate the effects of earlier cost-cutting legislation by raising the number of lecturers and researchers who can be hired for every one that retires.
All this might seem good news for students and teachers. Yet students have staged protests around the country. The main trade union federations organised a national strike, though one of them pulled out at the last minute. The opposition argues that no good will come of reforms inspired by cost reduction. But the government retorts that Italys ultra-low birth rate has created what Ms. Gelmini calls, an historic opportunity to raise quality while spending less. At least her plans deserve a fair hearing.

(Excerpted and adapted from The Economist)