Abstract

The relationship between school and world of work is one of the most controversial issues that national governments have been trying to tackle: several reforms have affected the world of education, in order for it to keep in step with the times and to be more sensitive to the companies’ needs. The world of Italian school was given more autonomy, since it was and is still blocked by a centralist system. By relating business top management and education, the present investigation highlights that the antithesis between humanistic education and technical-scientific education represents a conception of education which is finding its place in Europe, but rather it is reducing its driving force in the world of American business schools. This conceptual dualism tends to produce incomplete educational models and contents. The paper aims to demonstrate that the scientific technical drift, inclined to define humanistic education at high school as ineffective or “useless”, represents a step backwards with respect to the need of building highly-qualified human capital.

Key words: Soft skills, management, school, humanistic' education.