HistoryAt the beginning of the 1990s (law no. 341 from the 19th of November 1990) Italy's legislators decided to entrust the universities with the training of the secondary school teachers, creating for this purpose Schools of Specialization (SSIS). The definition of the objectives and contents of the 2-year teacher training course followed only 8 years later (law no. 127 of the 15th of May 1997, art. 17, comma 95, and MD of the Ministry of Education, Higher Education and Research of the 26th of May 1998). Success in the final exam leads to the Teacher Training Certificate in the subjects for which the candidates were originally accepted for.

The Italian section of the School of specialization was instituted at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano in the academic year 2000/2001.The  range of courses on offer was extended in the 2000/2001 academic year: the Qualifiying course in training of remedial secondary school teachers , lasting 800 hours (for which the entry requirement is the Teacher Training Certificate in one of the secondary school subjects) and the Qualifiying course in training of remedial secondary school teachers lasting 400 hours (reserved for school leavers and students of the Schools of specialization) were instituted.

In the 2004/2005 academic year there followed the training course lasting 800 hours for German-language special needs teachers.

A year later the German-language department was enlarged, and the School of Specialization for Secondary School Teachers was activated in the German language for the first time.