Located in the Itria Valley, a breath-taking area well-known for its rural landscapes and cultural heritage, “I.I.S.S. Agrario Alberghiero Basile-Caramia Gigante” is the major agricultural high school in Puglia, with over 1,000 students.
The Curriculum of our technical and vocational education consists of “Land and territory management”, “Animal husbandry”, “Food processing”, “Winemaking and Viticulture”. The core subjects of the learning courses are focused on increasing food quality and environment preservation through the use of innovative and sustainable techniques. Since 2014, a vocational school for hospitality and hotel management has become an integral part of the Institute with the aim of exploiting and enhancing the enogastronomic resources of the area.
In Alberobello the school is surrounded by several facilities: two farms, a livestock one, which dates back to 1962, and an old cheese factory, dating back to 1965, as well as about 30 hectares of land started up as olive groves, orchards and arable lands. A didactic modern oil mill is also available, thanks to European funds, specialized in the production of extra-virgin pitted olive oil.
The olive groves produce local varieties of olives, which are later pressed and squeezed in the experimental oil mill factory in order to obtain a fine extra-virgin olive oil.
Even in Locorotondo the school stands in the middle of old vineyards as the main activity is to train students in the Oenology and Viticulture sector. The availability of a didactic cellar, where they taught the winemaking process skills, according to the methodology of learning by doing, allows them to acquire a solid expertise.
At the back of the school, the C.R.S.F.A (Agricultural Station of Research and Experimentation) is the place where researches carried out to support farmers’ needs and where students can spend their job shadowing training period. Moreover the I.T.S Foundation for higher training is there located and deals with new technologies for the Made in Italy products.
Teaching Labs, such as Chemistry, Food Technology, Biology, Agronomy, ICT, Modern Languages, Wine and Oil Tasting, as well as Microbiology are learning environments where students investigate, analyze, and put into practice what they have learned.
