Socially useful work for students who are violent in class, a plan for young people who neither work nor study – over 3 million between the ages of 15 and 34, mainly concentrated in the South – raises for teachers to be included in the next budget law.
The Minister of Education, Giuseppe Valditara, speaking this morning at Direzione Nord, the event organized at the Palazzo delle Stelline in Milan, outlined the lines of his next interventions.
To combat episodes of violence in the classroom, a solution must be found “also by providing for different forms of sanctions against those students who are not able to respect the rules: one thing that has always seemed very useful to me is socially useful work,” he said, adding that the budget includes money to increase teachers’ contracts “and I will fight for new resources.”
On the 'NEETs', "I will launch a proposal in the next few days so that these kids fulfill at least one training requirement. We cannot accept that hundreds of thousands of young people live off their families and society".
Critic Francesco Sinopoli, who leads the Flc CGIL for which "the archaic and paternalistic vision" of the minister's statements appears evident. For Mario Rusconi, president of the Anp Roma presidia, the idea of socially useful work is not new at all.
“The Student Statute, in force for both middle and high schools for over a decade,” he explains, “provides a series of sanctions for students who commit unruly acts, forms of violence or cause damage to the school.”
And he tells how, as a school principal, he planned, as a punishment for a boy who had destroyed the door of his classroom, to have it repaired, while another who had played a macabre prank on a classmate on a school trip, had to serve in the Caritas canteen for a week.
"However, the question of identifying who is occupying a school remains unresolved, as we, the principals and the teachers, cannot access the occupied premises. In several cases - underlines Rusconi, who recalls how last year the occupations of 50 institutes in the capital resulted in damages of 500 thousand euros - the mandatory reporting to the police by the school principals did not obtain the eviction of the schools, even though it had been requested.
The minister should intervene on this problem”. The principals agree on the proposal regarding NEETs: “it is an important problem, that of young people who do not study and do not work and the school system must find a way for them, whether it is study or work.
The difficulty is finding the way, the school will have to follow more flexible paths”, reasons Cristina Costarelli, head of the principals of Lazio of Anp. The students find it “positive that Minister Valditara raises the issue of Neet” while with regard to socially useful work they remember that “disciplinary sanctions must always be formative and educationally useful for the growth of the student”.
Anna Ascani (PD) reminds the minister that "school is not a court and should not impose 'alternative punishments' on students, it is the place of education, forget about certain colossal stupidities".
Article published on November 21, 2022 - 20:50
