“Ricomincio da tre”: An inclusive pedagogical model for tackling school dropout

Abstract

The article discusses the issue of Early School Leaving, where an increasing number of young people leave school or vocational training before completing their upper secondary education; the exclusion from the education system puts their personal, educational, and professional future in jeopardy. Second-chance schools are presented as effective educational practices for tackling this phenomenon. Second-chance schools aim to create a learning environment that provides formative, educational, and existential guidance and support. The paper focus on the experimental project ‘Ricomincio da Tre”, promoted by the Provincial Center of Instruction for Adults (of Padua, analysing the voices of students and teachers who took part in it. The project stands out as a pedagogical inclusive model because it envisages a highly customised accompanying educational pathway, integrating the school, extracurricular activities and territorial experiences and realities into a network, experimenting new teaching models to provide comprehensive support for each student's growth.