To achieve the objectives that European Council in 2000 has given in Lisbon, becoming "the most competitive knowledge-based economy in the world", the school of the future is outlined by the official EU documents more and more like a school that must provide and establish new competences, rather than simply to provide and ensure only knowledge. Everybody knows that,  key competences have been defined by the European Recommendation of 18 December 2006 and are: communication in  mother tongue, communication in foreign languages, mathematical competence and basic competences in science and technology, digital competence, learning to learn, social skills and civic spirit of initiative and entrepreneurship, and cultural awareness and expression. These competences are deemed essential by the European Parliament and the Council for an active social life and the processes of development and innovation, and are termed "a combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to the context" of which everyone needs for achievement and personal development, active citizenship, social inclusion and employment. The Italian school, which implemented the EU legislation, provides for actions aimed at improving and disseminating especially some key competences, namely those concerning the understanding and use of language, reading, languages and other languages, mathematics and science, because they are the subject of international evaluation. The Italian school tend to take less account of all the other competences.    This paper, focusing on a micro-sector, inquires in which way Italian school implements and evaluates the competences acquired by a secondary school student who has done a long-term study abroad ("returnee"). It is assumed that the 'returnee', when he was abroad, among the various skills acquired, he has learned to move with ease between different cultural codes, beginning to acquire its own code of reworking. It is assumed that the 'returnee' acquires, together with other powers, a sort of 'metacompetence', the intercultural. This can be considered a form of 'empowerment' of the 'returnee'. The research inquires wheter and in what terms this empowerment can be reflected at the level of promotion and evaluation in the Italian school.

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