The reform of the adult education system has been gradually applied from school year 2013/2014. In school year 2014/2015, the re-organization of the Centres has started with the establishment of the first CPIAs. The reform has been fully applied in school year 2015/5016, when CPIAs and second level courses have been established in the whole country.

The process for the implementation of the reform has been defined by the Guidelines on the passage to the new system to support the organisational and teaching autonomy of CPIAs, issued in 2015. The reform process was accompanied by the PAIDEIA Plan, the whole of national measures that, together with the guidelines, is considered the fundamental and strategic element for the realisation of the new adult education system.

PAIDEIA is a three-year plan aimed at planning and providing professional development activities to support CPIAs’ autonomy; the activities of the PAIDEIA plan are destined to staff working at CPIAs and staff working in upper secondary schools offering second-level courses. The bodies in charge of implementing the Plan are Indire, Invalsi and the Regional School Offices From school year 2017/2018 the National registry of students includes, beside data on students enrolled in mainstream education, data on adult students enrolled in the adult education courses. In particular, the registry includes data on students attending the first-level courses and the literacy and Italian language courses, as well as data on the actions taken to widen the educational offer. The data collection also includes courses organised at detention centres.