Feanor

Some interesting data:
1. International tests performed on the italian school system showed that students from the south get the poorest grades (while Italy itself is pretty low in the list). Also, universities from the south on average don't meet the (low) quality standards established by the Ministry of Education (which are probably made with south America in mind).
2. This summer, like every year, there were the school state exams. You know, those exams to move from elementary to intermediate, from intermediate to high school, etc. The statistics show students from south Italy got the better grades.
How is it possible? Easy, teachers in the south "help" the students in cheating at the exams and/or use different/easier criteria when evaluating the tests. This is a well known mechanism, in fact even the current Minister of Education, Mariastella Gelmini, got an university degree in Law in the city of Brescia (that is the extreme north) but then went to Reggio Calabria (that is in the extreme south) to (easily) pass the State exam to become a lawyer.
3. There is an additional problem. The statistics include the grades got by kids that come from families of immigrants. Their grades are usually VERY low, due to a difficult integration. Now, the fact is that in north Italy schools there are SIX times more immigrants than in the south.
4. Of course, in this "common cheating" environment most of the public employees come from south Italy, that means Post Office, Teachers, Judges, Police, University Professors, Medical Doctors, etc, and finally politicians. You think about undergoing a surgery with the surgeon who passed exams cheating all his life, or be in a Court in front of a Judge who did the same...

There are many other issues but this helps a little in case somebody still wonders why there is the political movement that aims to separate north Italy from the south...