A deviating outlier

Whenever we think about universities , the first thing that comes to most peoples' minds is EXAMS!

No matter how much we loathe them,they have been up till now considered as the most reliable and valid assessment procedures in most of the countries worldwide.

While I was researching about the different educational systems , I stumbled over something which caught my eye and I thought would be worthwhile sharing.

The number of exams, university students must and can take in a university differ from country to country and in certain circumstances university to university too.

But Italy, among all other developed countries seems to be highly deviated outlier.

John Hey, an economist and a university of York professor who teaches in Italy as well has put up a page which shows the different trends unknown to most people.

ONE exam per course each year with no right to resit: Canada, United States
ONE exam per course per year with at most one resit: Denmark, France, Germany, Mexico, Switzerland, United Kingdom
ONE exam per course per year with at most two resits: Austria, The Netherlands
(Up to) TEN exams per course per year with right to resit as often as you wish:Italy

http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~jdh1/exams/index.htm

This kind of practise is uncommon in any other country of the world but leaves us thinking about the standards of education that would be prevalent in Italy and where does that leave them standing when its counterparts are way ahead leading the world and the university rankings too.

http://www.topuniversities.com/worlduniversityrankings/results/2007/overall_rankings/top_400_universities/