Our son returned to school after his three month summer break on Monday this week. He’s now in his second year of elementary school in Italy, and we were happy with the school and his progress. Year two is not off to a great start thanks to the reforms of Italy’s education minister Mariastella Gelmini.
Off School
Today, we received an official notification from the Milan state school that owing to the incomplete nomination of teachers, the children will be sent home at 2:30pm, not 4:30pm. Not sure about next week. This administrative mess-up comes, coincidentally, at the same time as the so-called Gelmini reforms to Italy’s education system come into effect. The result of this mess up is major disruption to the lives of many parents, and parent’s problems may affect productivity in Italy too.
Obviously the three month break was not long enough for Gelmini’s minions to sort the placement of teachers out.
We are not happy parents, and we are not alone.
Lots of Discontent Parents in Italy
As I said, we are not alone in our discontentment. And there are other problems, like potentially illegally large post-reform class sizes in some of Italy’s schools.
Over on the website of Italian newspaper La Repubblica, there is a long list of comments from unhappy parents around Italy. There are even some comments from Italians who are not yet fathers and mothers who are considering sending their future progeny to private schools. It’s not clear whether this was the intention behind Education Minister Gelmini’s ‘reforms’.
It’s sad really, aside from mass lay-offs of teachers with temporary employment contracts, the reforms did seem to be quite sensible in some respects. What is a real shame though, is that Gelmini, in her ministerial wisdom, paid no heed to that old adage ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ which applied to Italy’s efficient primary education system.
Marks Out of Ten for Gelmini
Marks out of ten to Gelmini for the general intentions behind the education reforms: 7.
Marks out of ten for the implementation of the reforms so far: Zero.
Education Minister Playing Down the Problems
Education minister Gelmini has been playing down the problems claiming that there are always issues at the start of new school years in Italy. While this is true in part, last year problems of such a magnitude did not manifest themselves, at least not in the school our son attends. And I don’t remember others complaining either.
The current problems could be mere teething troubles, but really, things like allocating teachers to classes should have been sorted out well before Italy’s schools opened their doors after the summer holidays. It’s not as if these reforms were unexpected.
Terms of Discontent?
It is possible that these problems have come about as a result of Italy’s teachers dragging their heels in protest over the reforms. Indeed, the changes have caused widespread consternation within Italy’s teaching profession.
The Bright Side, Possibly
Still, let’s look on the bright side, at least Gelmini has tried to reform Italy’s education system, which was in need of reform, in much the same way as certain school buildings in Italy need shoring up to ensure they don’t collapse on the heads of pupils. Actually, collapsing schools should not be a problem because if there are not enough teachers there will not be many kids in the schools. Maybe this was Gelmini’s intention – her reforms are really a cleverly disguised safety measure.
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Gelmini’s Lack of Experience?
I suppose the problems should come as no real surprise, seeing as minister Gelmini really had no experience of implementing large scale reforms. At least she’s young. She even has a young child, but I’m willing to bet her child will end up in a private school, and not necessarily in Italy.
Hey, ho, it’s on with life in Italy we go.
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I have a number of friends who seem unhappy with the education system here in Italy. I also see via blogging that Home Education is a growing phenomenon in Italy, now I understand a little more why that is.
I wasn’t aware that home education was possible in Italy. I have also talked to teachers and parents and we thought it was illegal. I am interested. Personally I have been very happy with the education my daughter has received so far from Asilo to Quarto Ginnasio
you know–it is really annoying to hear people judge what is going on in a country by the last two years’ acitivities! I’ve been living here for the past thirty-odd years, lived in Canada before that. now, it would NEVER dawn on me to pass judgment on Canada’s school system today, even though I went through it completely seeing that I finished my university course there. but it seems that two years here is enough to give some people rights to pass judgment! well, let me explain something. maybe the minister of education is young and inexperienced, but we have had for the past thirty years old foxes who have done everything possibile to destroy whatever type of education there was in this country, going from a ridiculously high surplus of teachers to loophole assignments thought to “settle” a particular person.
the classes are small [relatively] in number because in case people have forgotten, for the past decade or so, there has been no demographic growth! if there are no kids in school to form classes, what will you use? teddy bears? the reform is the best thing happening so far–the reason there is so much noise around it is because the teachers who are well and comfortably esconced behind their desks [and this is even more true for the university profs] are dead afraid that their chairs will be swept out from under them!
well, they can rest easy! this country has never been one to activate reforms quickly. but please, before cranking down on ms gelmini–go back and read our history for the past thirty years!
I too am convinced that this reform by minister Mariastella Gelmini, although not thoughtfully implemented, is still the best reform of the education system Italy has ever had, especially considering the limited and shrinking amount of resources Italian schools and universities are facing.
Historically, in Italy there hasn’t been much focus on spending government’s money the best way: everything has always been biased by a strong left-wing egalitarianism ideology.
We had to provide the same amount of funds to everyone and everywhere, regardless of results.
I remind you that — until the late 80s — Italy had the strongest communist party in the Western world, with percentages that in 1981 reached the 30% at national level: though this is now over, it did leave a huge legacy in the Italian culture and mindset.
This is the first time that (increasingly limited) resources are to be assigned basing on results schools and university achieved. The aim is to generate a “virtuous circle”, although I do admit that the implementation of such a large scale project is disappointing so far, especially for schools (the reform involves both schools and universities).
There is a lot of resistance and in these days (late Nov 2010) students are swarming in the streets protesting against the reform, as they say “it’s cutting expenditure too much”, although no one (protesters included) have clear ideas about where to get the extra money from.
In a nutshell, this reform simply tries to introduce accountability in funds distribution.
However, this is a big leap from an egalitarian approach.