← Back to the rankingIstituto di Istruzione Superiore Carlo Barletti
Ovada, Italy · est. 1968 · State
Illustration · Ovada
The Carlo Barletti institute is a state upper secondary school in Ovada, in the Alto Monferrato on the border of Piedmont and Liguria. Its history began in 1968, when a technical institute course opened in Ovada as a branch of an institute from Alessandria. Today it has the liceo scientifico in three versions (traditional, applied sciences and Cambridge option), technical institutes in mechanics and mechatronics, agriculture and agri-food, and administration, finance and marketing with a logistics focus, plus evening courses for adults. About 800 students attend from towns in the province of Alessandria and Liguria. Lessons are taught in Italian. In the Cambridge option liceo, extra hours in English on Cambridge IGCSE syllabuses are added to the Italian curriculum - English as a Second Language with a native speaker, ICT and one more subject in grades 3-4 - with IGCSE exams. The school prepares students for Cambridge English and DELF exams, takes part in Erasmus+ and sends grade 4 students to study abroad.
Key facts
Programmes
Cambridge · IGCSE · National programme
Languages of instruction
Italian, English
Languages taught
French, Latin
About the fees The school is a state school and tuition is free. The voluntary school contribution for 2025-2026 is 80 EUR in grades 1-2 and 95 EUR in grades 3-5; it is reduced for families in financial difficulty. The Cambridge International course carries a compulsory contribution of 400 EUR a year in two instalments of 200 EUR (by 31 October and by 31 January), plus the Cambridge fee for each IGCSE exam and English textbooks. State school taxes are paid in grades 4-5.
Admissions Grade 1 enrolment follows the state online procedure in January. For the Cambridge course, parents of grade 1 students sign a separate consent to the IGCSE study plan and its extra costs and email it with the lower secondary leaving documents; the website does not describe an entrance test. The school says it has foreign students and offers Italian as a second language courses to those who need them.
Stages and year groups Grades 1-5 scuola secondaria di secondo grado. Five-year programmes on the Italian curriculum with the esame di Stato: liceo scientifico, liceo scientifico opzione scienze applicate, liceo scientifico opzione Cambridge; istituti tecnici: Meccanica, Meccatronica ed Energia; Agraria, Agroalimentare e Agroindustria (with viticulture); Amministrazione, Finanza e Marketing with a logistics focus; evening AFM course. The Cambridge option keeps the traditional liceo scientifico plan and adds three hours a week: in grades 1-2, 2 hours of English as a Second Language with a native speaker and 1 hour of ICT in English; in grades 3-4, 2 hours of English and 1 more hour in English (physics on the track page, geography in the PTOF). Exam plan: PET in grade 1, IGCSE ICT in grade 2, FCE in grade 3, IGCSE Physics and English as a Second Language in grade 4, IELTS or CPE in grade 5. Graduates receive the Italian liceo diploma and IGCSE certificates in the subjects passed.
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
Cambridge · IGCSE · authorised programmeThe Cambridge register names the school as its centre; it teaches Cambridge IGCSE. The Cambridge option of the science liceo adds 3 hours a week in English: ESL with a native speaker, ICT in years 1-2 and one more subject in years 3-4, with IGCSE exams in years 2 and 4.
school is in an official registryconfirmed by a school document, by membership or by taking part in a networkclaimed by the school, no confirmation, not counted in the scoreGuide to all organisations → What stands behind each entry
CambridgeCambridge International Education
Part of the University of Cambridge. It allows a school to teach the Cambridge programmes and to enter pupils for the exams. There are four stages and they are authorised separately: primary, lower secondary, IGCSE and A Level. If the stages are known they are named in the line below; if that line is missing, the school does not publish them, and the Cambridge registry does not show stages either - it gives only the name of the centre, the country and whether private candidates are accepted. Cambridge calls what it does registration rather than accreditation, and the network holds about ten thousand schools.
What the badge means for this school. The school is allowed to run this programme and to award its certificate. This is a confirmation of the programme, not a judgement on the school as a whole. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it. At this school: IGCSE (ages 14-16). IGCSE means exams at around Year 10 or 11, the British counterpart of a lower secondary leaving certificate.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →National programme
The state school programme of the country the school stands in: it is set by that country's ministry of education, which also licenses the school and awards the leaving certificate. That certificate is used for entry to local universities, and abroad it is matched to the local one.
What this means for this school. This entry does not count towards the score, and that is deliberate. Every lawful school in a country works to the national programme, so on its own it tells one school apart from no other - unlike the French, German or Russian programmes, which are carried abroad and confirmed by the register of their organisation. We show it because a parent needs to know what programme their child is taught and what certificate the child will get. Counting it would lift the whole ranking at once and still tell nobody apart.
Exams and destinations from the school's official website
The school publishes nothing about where its leavers go: no share going on to university, no exam results, no list of universities.
Facilities from the school's official website
·Swimming poolnot stated on the website
✓Sports hall
✓Laboratories
·Theatre or assembly hallnot stated on the website
✓Library
·Cateringnot stated on the website
·School transportnot stated on the website
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Sports ground or field
Clubs and activities: Theatre in English · Foreign-Language Theatre · Erasmus+ (international exchanges) · ICDL (computer skills certification) · Mathematics Olympiads · English Olympiads · Mountain School · Simulated Training Company
Teaching staff from the school's official website
·Teachers listed by namenot published
·Teacher qualificationsnot stated
·Number of teachersthe school does not say
·Students per teacher or class sizenot stated
More than 60% of teachers are on permanent contracts, 75% of them with more than five years' experience; two teachers are qualified to teach subjects in English through CLIL. English in the Cambridge option is taught by native speakers, subjects in English by subject teachers together with a language teacher.
Safety and wellbeing from the school's official website
·CCTVnot stated on the website
·Security staffnot stated on the website
·Access controlnot stated on the website
·Nurse or medical roomnot stated on the website
✓Counsellor
·Child protection policynot stated on the website
·Staff trainingnot stated on the website
✓Anti-bullying policy
The school plans counselling desks and discussion groups and works on preventing bullying and cyberbullying; it has many students with disabilities and learning difficulties, supported by specialised support teachers and transport.
Reviews
No reviews yet. The community rating counts towards the score once a school has five verified reviews - until then we do not show a zero, so as not to mislead.
Criteria breakdown criterion weight in brackets
Academics and programmes (16%)72 Community rating (16%)no dataparent reviews are needed: the criterion switches on at the fifth verified one Exams and destinations (12%) scored on disclosed data55 Safety and wellbeing (12%) scored on disclosed data65 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)85 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data70 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data78 "Scored on disclosed data" stands where we count only what the school has written about itself on its own site: exams and destinations, safety and wellbeing, teaching staff, facilities, clubs and activities. A low score here means the school does not write about this, not that the school does not have it: a school with good security and a sparse site will score low. A school can fill in its profile, and the score will be counted again.
The score is counted from 8 of the 9 criteria.Only those with checkable data count: programmes and accreditations from official registers, the fee from a published price list. Where it says "scored on the median", the school has no data and the middle of the list is put in its place, so that a gap gives no advantage. Admissions, teaching staff and reviews come in as their data arrives.
The full methodology → Similar schools in the country