Summary

The Italian university system, along the mainstream of the European higher education systems, is adopting efficiency and effectiveness as criteria for process programming and result managing. For this purpose, both the national system headed by the Ministry of Edu- tion, University and Research, and the universities, within their managerial autonomy, activated since the 1990s a systematic assessment of their research and teaching activities and of other services. The assessment on a large scale of aspects of the educational system started in Italy when the Ministry imposed in 1999 that the teaching of each course of Bachelor and Master programmes be evaluated by the student and that s- thetic marks be sent to a National Board for University System Evaluation (CNVSU) for comparative and intervention purposes. The compelling need to assess the course quality not only demolished the atavic distrust that part of the academics have had against the assessment of the teaching, but also started, in a concrete way, the participation of students to activities dedicated to them. Moreover, the widespread consciousness of teaching assessment, as a tool for empowering the higher education system, entered the Ministry and universities' agenda. Even though the use of the course evaluations, for intervention purposes, still is limited to the most fanciful and fearless faculties and universities, the process has started and it will not be easy to circumvent.