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SCHOOLS

Italy to reopen primary schools amid ‘very early signs of slowdown’ in infections

Italy will reopen schools for younger students and ease the coronavirus lockdown on Rome and its surrounding region, the government announced on Friday.

Published: 26 March 2021 17:11 CET
Updated: 26 March 2021 18:52 CET
Italy to reopen primary schools amid 'very early signs of slowdown' in infections
Deserted streets in Rome. Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP

Primary schools will reopen after the Easter holidays, while the rules in the Lazio region will be relaxed from Tuesday.

Meanwhile the regions of Tuscany and Valle D’Aosta will go into a form of lockdown from Monday, after hitting the threshold for new cases that automatically makes them Covid-19 “red zones”.

EXPLAINED:

Current coronavirus curbs, which vary from region to region, expire on April 6th, but all of Italy will be made a restricted red zone under maximum restrictions during the April 3rd-5th weekend.

Lazio, which has been red for the past two weeks, will move into orange from Tuesday, March 30th, before passing back into red over next weekend. 

It is expected to be the only region where rules are relaxed before Easter, based on the latest weekly health data released by Italy’s Higher Health Institute (ISS) on Friday. 

Two more regions that are currently orange, Tuscany and Valle D’Aosta, will become red from Monday, March 29th, while all others are expected to remain as they are now.

That leaves the updated regional classification as follows:

  • Red zones: Campania, Emilia Romagna, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Lombardy, Marche, Piedmont, Puglia, autonomous province of Trento, Tuscany, Valle D’Aosta, Veneto.
  • Orange zones: Abruzzo, Basilicata, autonomous province of Bolzano, Calabria, Lazio, Liguria, Molise, Sicily, Sardinia, Umbria.

There are no yellow or white zones under the latest classification.

“I can confirm the decision … to open [schools] until the sixth grade,” Prime Minister Mario Draghi said during a news conference. Classes for the lower grades will be allowed to reopen country-wide, even in higher-risk regions still classified as red.

Schools were closed in most of Italy on March 15th, after the government introduced a partial shutdown to contain a third wave of infections fuelled by virus variants. The closures triggered a string of protests by students, parents and some teachers, with demonstrations in more than 60 cities on Friday.

Over the past 13 months, Italian students have had to put up with longer suspensions of face-to-face schooling than most of their peers in Europe.

Students in Turin demonstrate against the closure of high schools in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Photo by Marco Bertorello / AFP

Italy was the first country in Europe to face the full force of the coronavirus pandemic, and has so far reported more than 106,000 Covid-19-related deaths.

Health Minister Roberto Speranza said on Friday there were now “very early signs of a slowdown” in infection rates, allowing for some cautious re-openings.

The R rate, which measures how fast the virus is spreading, has fallen to 1.08 nationally, from 1.16 last week, said Speranza, who spoke alongside Draghi. Furthermore, the weekly number of infections per 100,000 residents has fallen under the critical level of 250, the minister added.

Speranza said he would relax coronavirus restrictions in the Lazio region, which includes Rome, moving it from red to orange category, effective from Tuesday. This will allow the resumption of face-to-face classes for students up to grade eight, and a relaxation of stay-at-home rules.

In orange zones people are free to move within their own municipalities, though bars, restaurants and museums remain shut.

In red zones all movement is limited, with only ‘essential’ shops open and socializing banned.

The Italian government has not yet announced what will replace the current rules after April 6th, but is expected to continue revising them based on the latest health data.

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SCHOOLS

OPINION: Italian schools need to make parents’ lives easier, not harder

Italy's school schedules are very different to those in many other countries - and this puts working parents at a disadvantage, writes Silvia Marchetti.

Published: 23 November 2023 12:52 CET
OPINION: Italian schools need to make parents' lives easier, not harder

Most of my expat friends are baffled by the Italian school schedule: generally speaking, kids at public schools attend from 8.30am to 1.30pm, returning home for lunch.

This means parents who have full-time jobs must send the grandparents, or the nanny (at exorbitant cost), to fetch the children and take them home, feed them and make sure they do their homework, which there is often too much of – and looks to me like an attempt to compensate for the little time spent in class.

READ ALSO: ‘Very underfunded, very strict’: What readers think of Italy’s schools

Between the short days, the long holidays and the ponti, it’s a nightmare for working couples who are only able to manage if they can rely on two sets of grandparents (even though, for some, it isn’t always a joy looking after grandchildren), or aunts and uncles who most likely have also their own children to take care of.

I know many couples who regularly fight on Sundays over whose turn it is to ask friends or relatives for help with school logistics.

Also, in some areas of Italy, children still go to school on Saturday mornings and this just increases the difficulties for families having to also deal with a short weekend and little time to relax.

(Photo by Vincenzo PINTO / AFP)

The schedule means parents need to come up with after-school plans so kids don’t get bored. Those who have a part-time job often go mad driving kids across the city for basketball or swimming lessons, when the school could have organised these. Private sports tuition in Italy is also very expensive for families with several children and a low income.

I’ve always been surprised myself by the lack of extra-curricular activities, like sports, pottery classes, arts and music labs, computer lessons, or anything that involves some kind of physical activity instead of sitting at a desk chair.

Traffic jams in Rome usually form at 1.30pm because cars line up outside schools the Italian way – practically in the middle of the street – to pick up hordes of screaming, hungry kids.

I grew up in American and British schools in Italy and abroad, and I never came home before 5pm. There was either some movie to watch for our English literature essay, painting lessons, or foreign language courses. Lunch was at school cafeteria, and it was the best part of the day.

These were all of course private schools, but I believe the Italian state could charge a minimum extra fee (certainly costing less than a nanny) for school meals and parents would be more than happy to pay it.

OPINION: Are Italy’s international schools really ‘international’?

When I lived in Jakarta in the afternoons we had swimming, volleyball, theatre, baseball and piano lessons. We had to attain a certain hours of social services, I chose to go to the local orphanages to bring toys and clothes and play with the little orphans. I also had very little homework, often none, or spread across the whole week given there was little time left to do it at home before dinner.

Some may argue the Anglo-American model drains family quality time, but actually it enhances it, because the end of the school day coincides with that of the parents’ working day.

There is also no such thing in Italy as using extra school hours, bar perhaps a few exceptions, to do social work which may benefit the community – like visiting orphanages, volunteering to help the poor and homeless, or doing something as fun as going to shelters to play with dogs, and ‘adopting’ one, while learning.

I have friends in Holland who are happy that their kids stay at school until 5pm, actively engaging in interesting activities (once they were even given lessons on how to build a snowman without slipping or getting hurt.) The public system in Holland takes of everything, even ensuring that the school-family balance is sustainable.

If only Italy could look abroad for some examples and implement them, Italian families could be much happier.

Unfortunately, the only debate going on about this is happening in homes or at the school gates, between mothers or grandparents or friends.

Italy’s politicians, even though they may have school-aged kids, have never so far addressed these challenges in parliament. Most likely because they can afford a nanny.

Do you agree or disagree with the opinions expressed in this article? Please leave a comment below to let us know your thoughts.

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