← Back to the rankingIstituto di Istruzione Superiore "Umberto Eco"
Alessandria, Italy · est. 1859 · State
Illustration · Alessandria
Istituto di Istruzione Superiore «Umberto Eco» is a state upper secondary school in central Alessandria that brings together two of the city's oldest schools: Liceo Ginnasio «Giovanni Plana», founded as a royal liceo in 1859, where Umberto Eco himself studied, and Istituto Magistrale «Diodata Roero Saluzzo», opened in 1867. Today it has six tracks: liceo classico, liceo linguistico (English, French, German or Spanish, with the ESABAC dual Italian-French diploma), liceo delle scienze umane and its economic and social option, liceo musicale and liceo coreutico. Since 2022-2023 it has run a Liceo Classico Cambridge section: two hours of English with a native speaker are added to the classical curriculum, part of Latin is taught in English, a Global Perspectives course runs in years 3-4, and students sit Cambridge IGCSE exams. About 1400 teenagers aged 14-19 attend on three sites; the main language of instruction is Italian.
Key facts
Programmes
Cambridge · IGCSE · National programme
Languages of instruction
Italian, English
Languages taught
French, German, Spanish, Latin
About the fees The school is a state school and tuition is free. Each year the school asks families for a voluntary contribution (contributo volontario) for school activities of 80 EUR. The school does not list a separate charge for the Cambridge course.
Admissions Admission to first-year classes is through the national Iscrizioni online procedure in January; for the first classes of liceo musicale and liceo coreutico the school publishes separate lists of admitted students. The Liceo Classico Cambridge section is formed from students enrolled in the first year of liceo classico: the school contacts them and asks whether they wish to join the course. Open days take place in December and January at the via Faà di Bruno and Piazza Matteotti sites, with no booking needed. The school admits foreign students during the year as well, including those with no Italian: there are Italian as a second language classes, and newly arrived students get a basic literacy course with support from the local adult education centre CPIA.
Stages and year groups Grades 1-5 liceo (classico, linguistico, scienze umane, economico-sociale, musicale, coreutico). Italian state upper secondary curriculum, five years ending with the esame di Stato (maturità): liceo classico (including the Classico Cambridge section), liceo linguistico with ESABAC (history taught in French from year 3, Italian diploma and French baccalauréat), liceo delle scienze umane, liceo delle scienze umane opzione economico-sociale (also in a four-year version), liceo musicale, liceo coreutico; the four-year liceo classico quadriennale was being phased out from 2022-2023. Liceo Classico Cambridge since 2022-2023: English 5 hours a week for all five years, including 2 hours with a native speaker in years 1-4, preparing for IGCSE English as a Second Language; 2 of 5 Latin hours in years 1-2 taught in English (IGCSE Latin); Global Perspectives in years 3-4 for 2 hours within civic education. Cambridge IGCSE exams are sat at the school in June and November; class 3AC has already received IGCSE English as a Second Language certificates. In the liceo linguistico there are 33 hours a year of conversation with a native speaker for each language.
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 classical liceo section has 5 hours of English with a native speaker, part of Latin in English in years 1-2 and Global Perspectives in years 3-4, with IGCSE exams at the school.
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
Clubs and activities: Classical Theatre Workshop · Theatre Project · Mathematics Olympiad · Certamen (classical languages competition) · Cross-Country Running · IRIS Project (music and inclusion)
Teaching staff from the school's official website
·Teachers listed by namenot published
·Teacher qualificationsnot stated
✓Number of teachers191
·Students per teacher or class sizenot stated
The institute has 191 teachers and 43 administrative and technical staff; the school notes high staff turnover in recent years due to retirements and new recruitment competitions. The Classico Cambridge section has native English speakers and teachers who teach part of their subjects in English; the liceo linguistico has native speakers for conversation practice.
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
·Counsellornot stated on the website
·Child protection policynot stated on the website
·Staff trainingnot stated on the website
✓Anti-bullying policy
The PTOF sets goals of preventing bullying, including online, and including students with special needs (about 80 students with disabilities), with an inclusion group (GLI); there is a subject help desk for students who fall behind, and Italian as a second language (L2) classes for foreign students.
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 data60 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)85 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data70 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data70 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data76 "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