In Rome there are a lot of both private and public high schools. High schools in Italy can have different courses: arts, languages, humanities, sciences and so on. Some schools are more “theoretical”, generally need you to carry on to higher education (universities and other higher education institutes) and are called licei, whereas others are vocational institutes and usually more “practical”, “technical”: they’re generally called istituti tecnici and can focus on different subjects (industrial institute, commercial institute, arts institute and so on). The course lasts 5 years, except for arts institutes (4 years).