This work shows results emerging from a first experimental attempt to produce educational attainment forecasts of the Italian resident population for the period 2016-2035.

Education is a major factor affecting demographic events, and in turn it is itself determined by the demographic processes.

A dynamic microsimulation model in the continuous-time for forecasting educational patterns is used (MicSim R-Package). At the individual level the model simulates lifetime educational behaviour, bringing in a long term projection of the general educational level in Italy.

The jump-off population is represented by 100,000 virtual individuals selected from the official resident population on January 1st 2016. Each individual is characterized by age, gender, current educational status and maternal educational attainment. At this stage of the model development migration is not considered, so that population is assumed as close.

The model runs by using the following transition rates (Willekens, 2007):

• specific transition education rates by age, sex and mother’s education;

• specific fertility rates of women by age and education;

• specific mortality rates by age and sex.

As concerns the assumptions, two different scenarios are defined for specific education rates, while fertility and mortality rates follow a pattern of development in line with the latest official projections.