That the government’s not exactly well-conceived Education Decree was primarily propaganda aimed at the right – just as the left’s indignation was merely instrumental propaganda – has already been stated and is clear even to non-Italian speakers. Yet yesterday, La Repubblica carried headlines devoid of factual basis: ‘Parents who do not speak Italian in the firing line’, ‘Children taken away from those who refuse’. This is not true; it is the bipartisan face of populism. Outside the realm of politics, however, there is a cultural absurdity – a denial of our country’s very linguistic memory and of how it was painstakingly built – which is astonishing coming from left-wing politicians and others besides.

The decree does not provide for the removal of children from parents who do not facilitate the use of the Italian language at home – and the Constitutional Court would certainly reject such a provision. But there is not even a ‘right’ in the Constitution to ignore Italian, even setting aside the fact that in Germany, knowledge of the German language is a mandatory requirement for obtaining citizenship. One might argue that this is a task that should be funded by public money, and that is true. But to pass off not knowing Italian as a right is worse than being reactionary; it is simply stupid.

It is astonishing that this should come from the progressive camp: it means they no longer even read Moravia. Or that they are unaware of our country’s linguistic history. That they no longer even read Tullio De Mauro, the great historian of the Italian language, an intellectual of the progressive left, and Minister of Education under Amato. He was the first to explain and clarify the civic – even before the sociological or political – mechanism by which one ‘becomes’ Italian. One emerges from the minority status in which millions of post-war Italians found themselves, and not just in the south. It was also television, yes, after the 1960s (so much for Pasolini’s ‘fireflies’), that ensured all Italians began to speak the language of a united Italy in a way that had not happened for the previous ninety years. They began to speak Italian, at least at a basic level, encouraging their children to use the new language as well. School combined with television, but also a desire for social integration to which all post-war generations can bear witness. De Mauro pointed out that, until 1974, more than half of Italians used only their dialect at home. It was not until the 1980s (was it Berlusconi’s fault?) that Italian became the permanent language in homes as well. In the major cities of the north, it was immigration that led to the dialects dying out first. In Rome, the language had already changed by the sixteenth century, when immigration from Florence and central Italy forced the Romans – who were still speaking like Cola di Rienzo – to change their language altogether. Who knows why they accepted it: could it have been fascism? Do they still read Tullio De Mauro there?

Even The Economist reported on it during the Expo, in an article that recalled with nostalgia and amazement the now-extinct Milanese dialect of Svampa, Jannacci and Strehler – witnesses to a turning point in history that also represented integration. It was not a cataclysm that brought about the change: it was the need for the Milanese (or Turinese) themselves to begin – and gradually succeed – in communicating with the newcomers. But the opposite also happened: dialects and everyday languages began to incorporate words from other sources, or from modernity. It was also a matter of respect and hospitality, of starting to speak the language ‘of everyone’. Consequently, people also ceased speaking dialect at home: Lombard parents, no less than those from the hills around Piacenza, stopped using dialect at the dinner table—precisely to ‘force’ their children to learn Italian, the language of school, the language of everyone. One need only ask an elderly person for confirmation.

Even Concetto Vecchio, however, is stretching the point: “Anyone who emigrated to Switzerland in the 1960s and 1970s knows that only a few parents actually spoke Schweizerdeutsch or German: they would turn up for parent-teacher meetings accompanied by their perfectly bilingual children, and it was the children who acted as interpreters with the teachers and lecturers”. Were they ‘entitled’ to do so? Was it not, rather, a hindrance to their own freedom and integration? Can a left-wing movement – or, to put it more broadly, a conscious and progressive society – really trade cultural and civil progress for an absurd linguistic niqab, just to spite Giorgia Meloni? It is political illiteracy.

The draft decree-law contains urgent measures to ensure the smooth start of the 2026/2027 academic year, to support the measures of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan falling within the remit of the Ministry of Education and Merit, and to promote the integration of foreign students within the school system as well as in higher education and research. Among other things, the decree-law would include a cap on the number of foreign pupils per class and a ban on the wearing of burqas and niqabs during school activities.

“Today, the Council of Ministers approved the decree on schools. A 30 per cent cap on the number of pupils in classes who do not have an adequate command of Italian, more resources to help them learn our language, and a ban on burqas and niqabs in schools. These are common-sense measures that do not divide, but help to achieve genuine integration, avoiding ‘ghetto’ classes and giving all pupils the same opportunities,” said Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on social media. “This is the direction we want to continue to follow,” she added, “a school system that promotes integration without compromising on the rules, that supports those facing the greatest difficulties, and that ensures everyone starts on an equal footing.”

Article currently being updated

However, a warning to the contrary has come from the Quirinale. The President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, speaking at the opening of the new school year in Amatrice, emphasised that “school is the most effective means of integration for those coming from other countries and for young people born in Italy who are the children of emigrants” and that its role is “to forge bonds, win the trust of families, and help prevent the formation of ghettos and the erection of barriers”. While Valditara described the Head of State’s speech as “wonderful”, he does not seem inclined to back down because, as he explained, “the phenomenon of ‘white flight’ worries me greatly: it exists worldwide but also affects Italy. If we reduce the proportion of pupils who do not speak our language to a balanced level, the other pupils might return. That is why I find the left’s controversies pointless: there is a risk here of sliding back towards the Alabama of the 1950s, with ghetto schools, those of segregation.” And he responded to those accusing the government of rushing through the legislation to stem Vannacci’s rise on the right: “We do not engage in rhetoric but in concrete action. And we have been working on these issues since well before FnV. The legislation on strengthening language support for newly arrived foreigners, which I strongly championed, dates from last year.”

The legislation should also include a requirement for the parents of foreign pupils to learn Italian: “If you speak Arabic at home,” said the minister, “you forget what you’ve learnt at school. International studies tell us that it is important for parents to know the language and keep track of what their children are doing at school.” On the ban on wearing the burqa and the niqab – which should also be included in the decree – Valditara is unequivocal: “It is a matter of civilisation; I am sorry for those who are stirring up controversy, but the burqa is the symbol of a violent patriarchal mindset that regards women as non-persons, and which we in the Lega have always opposed. Our values hold that women’s freedom is non-negotiable.” Regarding the inevitable organisational difficulties that the new decree will bring, Valditara explained that the regulation will assign a “coordinating role to local education authorities, which will be able to transfer surplus pupils to another nearby school, as is already the case today for surplus Italian pupils. Inaction will no longer be an option. Furthermore, we are planning a specific organisational model”. “It is clear,” he concluded, “that there will be scope for an exemption where it is not possible to transfer them to neighbouring schools, but the regulation is binding. For such cases, a budget of several million has been set aside to recruit teachers to strengthen Italian language provision for foreign nationals who remain at the same school. We are not making empty announcements, but building a system designed to work.”

The issue of the ‘excessive’ number of foreign pupils in classes: setting aside xenophobic nonsense, the crux of the matter – which can be resolved without having to build ‘more school complexes’ – is the level of language proficiency. Unfortunately, even in upper secondary classes, pupils are often placed who lack sufficient language skills. With the absurd rhetoric that ‘they cannot be placed in different streams because that would be segregation’, all too often they end up sitting idle at their desks, without any support: this is the real racism. It would be enough simply to count how many there are and organise basic courses to bring them up to an adequate language level: after all, we do the same for Erasmus students.

Second propaganda myth: the veil, or rather even ‘the burqa’. The two must be distinguished, and it is not always true that a liberal state should ban a cultural – or even religious – symbol. But here too there is a harmful reverse rhetoric: those who argue (even educationalists!) that this would lead families (Muslim, but not only) to withdraw their children from compulsory schooling. Yet compulsory schooling is, by definition, compulsory. The state has both the power and the duty to ensure that non-compliant families (and anti-vaxxer families) fulfil their obligations. 

All the more so at the start of the academic year leading up to the general election, Giorgia Meloni’s statements must therefore be put into perspective within this framework, which reveals them for what they are: for example, the much-discussed ban on the hijab and niqab makes no educational sense, but is justified by the fact that the collective imagination of Vannacci’s electoral base is haunted by the nightmare of quintessentially Italian grandchildren forced to write their first lines surrounded by budding jihadists. The same applies to the cap on foreign nationals: not only is there already legislation in place, but the actual national average is said to stand at just over 10 per cent. Far more significant, however, is the subtext of the proposal, which is indeed of educational interest.

It is clear that a strict cap on the number of foreign pupils – if by this we mean non-Italian-speaking new arrivals, rather than, say, a boy whose parents are Polish but who was born in Cerignola, or a Senegalese girl who has already successfully completed primary and lower secondary school – would entail a reorganisation of classes, creating smaller groups into which tiny sub-groups of foreign pupils would be placed, or separate courses exclusively for foreign pupils requiring special attention to catch up. Put like that, it would be such a progressive proposal as to seem revolutionary, also entailing the need to recruit new teaching staff, build new classrooms and make use of school premises throughout the entire day. It might even be considered a left-wing policy, but the voters are not interested: all that mattered to them – and to the Prime Minister – was that the announcement sounded right-wing; after all, nobody really knows what actually happens in schools once the gates are closed.

“Schools must be ‘places where no one feels excluded’,” said Cardinal Matteo Zuppi as he opened the proceedings of the Permanent Council of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, which he chairs. “We cannot accept that a child’s place of birth, economic or physical circumstances, or social background should determine their learning opportunities. A truly inclusive school is one of the most powerful tools for justice and peace.”

Mattarella also took the opportunity to remind us that “in schools, coexistence and respect must prevail, with violence banished. Violence takes many forms: explicit bullying, and groups and gangs forming outside the classrooms. Violence against teachers: the latest serious incident, which occurred just a few days ago, adds to those that have already taken place and have not been forgotten. Sometimes perpetrated by pupils, but more frequently by parents, who are far more culpable in this betrayal of their educational duty; shirking their fundamental partnership with teachers". Still on the subject of teachers, the Head of State emphasised their importance, saying that "a machine can never take the place of a teacher, however intelligent that machine may be. When a pupil raises their hand, the teacher can tell whether they are doing so to waste time or to better understand a concept, or whether they are asking a question; the teacher can tell if the pupil is unprepared or is trying to express a concept more clearly – a machine would struggle to do that. You yourselves have guided a machine, not the other way round".

Returning to the subject of artificial intelligence, the President emphasised that the role of schools is to “educate young people so that they are keen to harness the potential of their mobile phones to think for themselves, freely, rather than surrendering to someone else thinking for them; to seek out new horizons rather than resigning themselves to whatever the algorithm decides to offer us”. “In the digital world,” he emphasised, “artificial intelligence and social media are powerful drivers offering opportunities that were unimaginable until yesterday. Progress must not be hindered, feared or passively followed. It must be guided and continually monitored to ensure that the dignity of the person remains paramount. This is why it is essential that the younger generations – who are best equipped to use these new tools – grow up by balancing knowledge with humanity, and technological skills with solidarity.”

Mattarella then appealed to the young people: “Pupils are not merely users of the school system. Society needs their voice. Young people, take an even more active role in school life. Knowledge and study are important for life. Not abstract knowledge, or knowledge that is merely abstract. But knowledge that goes hand in hand with friendship, care for those around us, and responsibility towards others. This is the path to freedom. Our freedom is genuine only if freedom exists for everyone.” He went on to say that history was his favourite subject and that he shares with Alberto Angela not only a love of history but “also terrible handwriting”. “Look to the future with confidence; my generation has witnessed unimaginable transformations. Never look to the past. Best wishes,” concluded the Head of State.

Let’s start with the definition of ‘foreigner’. The Ministry of Education and Merit considers pupils who do not hold Italian citizenship to fall into this category. This category includes both children who have just arrived and those born and educated in Italy. Passports distinguish between nationalities, but educational needs do so far less clearly.

Second issue: what should the cap be? If the aim is to prevent Italians from becoming a minority, a consistent threshold would be 50 per cent. A limit of 30 or 20 per cent pursues a more restrictive objective: to ensure that they constitute a very large majority.

To assess the implications, the analysis relied on the 2024–2025 ministerial data on state primary and lower secondary schools: 21,558 school complexes, 3.67 million pupils, of whom approximately 520,000 are foreign nationals. Eighteen regions are covered; Valle d’Aosta and Trentino-Alto Adige are excluded. The data distinguishes between year groups within each school complex, but not between individual classes.

With a 20 per cent cap, the number of excess foreign pupils would be around 135,000. With a 30 per cent cap, it would be over 64,000; with a 50 per cent cap, over 12,000. The excess figures are calculated for each school complex and year group and then totalled: even the least restrictive threshold would therefore have consequences that are far from negligible.

What does ‘reallocate’ mean? Consider a school with a hundred pupils, thirty of whom are foreign nationals. With a 20 per cent cap, dividing these children across several classes solves nothing: thirty out of a hundred remains thirty out of a hundred. Arithmetic, unlike decrees, is hard to get round.

If the ten foreign pupils who were transferred were replaced by ten Italian pupils, the proportion would fall to 20 per cent. Without replacements, transferring ten would not be enough: there would still be twenty foreign pupils out of ninety, or 22.2 per cent. At least thirteen would need to be transferred.

The figures presented here are based on a one-to-one exchange, with subscriber numbers remaining unchanged and no exceptions. The total number of children affected would therefore be around 270,000 under the 20 per cent cap, 129,000 under the 30 per cent cap and 25,000 under the 50 per cent cap. However, this is a theoretical calculation, not a transfer plan: to determine whether it is feasible, it would be necessary to identify the receiving schools, check the number of places available for each year group and calculate the distances the pupils would have to travel.

Let’s take the municipality of Milan. Of the 217 school complexes considered, there are 20,537 foreign pupils out of a total of 68,650, almost 30 per cent. The breakdown by school complex and year group paints this picture.

To understand in practical terms what this would entail, let us take the two state primary schools in Milan at opposite ends of the municipal data spectrum for 2024–2025: the Setti Carraro dalla Chiesa school in Via Passione, in the Guastalla district, has the lowest percentage of pupils with non-Italian citizenship, 5 out of 231 (2.2 per cent); the Giuseppe Lombardo Radice school in Via Paravia, in the San Siro district, has the highest, 84 out of 103 (81.6 per cent). For the sake of simplicity, if we calculate the figures for the entire school complex, to bring the Lombardo Radice school down to 20 per cent, 64 foreign children would need to be transferred and replaced with an equal number of Italian children. However, the Setti Carraro school could accommodate a maximum of 41 before reaching its own limit: in return, 41 Italian children would have to move from Guastalla to San Siro. And that would not be enough, because there would still be 43 foreign pupils out of 103 at Lombardo Radice. Further schools and cross-transfers would therefore be required.

With a 20 per cent cap, even intra-city transfers would not be sufficient in Milan: the overall proportion would remain at almost 30 per cent. With pupil numbers unchanged, schools outside the municipality would need to be involved. And in primary schools alone, the average even slightly exceeds 30 per cent. Before promising a cap, it would therefore be necessary to explain who would have to travel through which neighbourhoods, and perhaps which municipal boundaries.

Which families should be excluded from their nearest school? Would the decision be based on a lottery, income, enrolment date or passport? In Boston, since 1966, the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity’s voluntary programme has enabled the city’s pupils to attend state schools in neighbouring municipalities, with funding also provided for transport. Does the government intend to fund a scheme of this kind, or to impose school transfers?

How much would it cost? The data do not specify how many new classrooms are needed. If there were sufficient capacity in the receiving schools, none might be required, but the transport costs would remain. If, on the other hand, a quarter of the surplus pupils required new capacity, with 22 pupils per class, 1.8 full-time equivalent teachers, €50,000 per year per teacher and a 20 per cent surcharge for non-teaching staff and administration, the cost would be around 166 million per year with a 20 per cent cap, 79 million with a 30 per cent cap and 15 million with a 50 per cent cap. This is a scenario, not a budget: it excludes transport, canteens and new classrooms, and does not assess where the classes could be established.

Redistribution could also have unintended consequences. Wealthier Italian families might opt for private schools, exacerbating segregation in state schools. Schools might discourage ‘problematic’ enrolments so as not to exceed the cap. Foreign children might have to travel further than their Italian classmates.

The figures therefore suggest that even the 50 per cent cap would not be without consequences. Lowering it to 20 per cent would increase the theoretical number of transfers by more than tenfold. The main issue is not how many classes to create, but which children to transfer, where, and at whose expense.

If the aim were truly to address linguistic difficulties, a more appropriate criterion would not be citizenship, but recent entry into the Italian school system. A cap applied solely to new arrivals would affect a much smaller and more concentrated group. However, not all new arrivals are unfamiliar with Italian, and not all pupils who have been here for some time have mastered it. The best criterion would therefore be a documented need for language support, not citizenship, nor, on its own, the date of arrival. However, public data from the Ministry of Education does not allow the effects to be calculated on a school-by-school basis: it records citizenship, not the date of arrival in Italy nor knowledge of Italian.

Doubts remain as to whether Meloni’s proposal is linked to competition from Roberto Vannacci on the right, his ‘remigration’ and the issue of segregated classes. The suspicion is that the government is not so much concerned that Italian children might find themselves in a minority compared to foreign children, as that the number of Fratelli d’Italia voters might fall below that of Vannacci’s supporters.

Paolo Manasse, University of Bologna

The first myth to dispel is that publishers alter certain details in textbooks – an image here, an exercise there, the size of the maps and perhaps the title on the cover – to force families to buy so-called ‘new’ books every year, which are in fact old ones that have been recycled. This is not true: to be clear, they do engage in such practices (spoiler: they are publishing houses, not charities), but this does not necessitate any repurchase, as there are restrictions preventing changes to the text during a school cycle. In practice, if a student purchases a history textbook in the third year of sixth form, they will continue using the subsequent volumes of that edition right through to their A-levels, while any new edition will be intended for the next cohort of third-year sixth formers. What this rather underhand ploy entails – though a necessary one, given that the school sector keeps a large part of the Italian publishing industry afloat – is, in fact, the impossibility of buying textbooks at half price from those who used them the previous year and wish to sell them on. Essentially, the publishers’ cunning tactics harm those who prefer an old, tattered and greasy book to a brand-new one all to themselves.

Let’s now move on to the second cliché: the cover price is too high. This is not true. Looking through lists of books to be adopted for the coming school year, I find, for example, philosophy textbooks priced at 29 euros – and we’re talking about volumes of around six hundred pages. If I buy a novel of a similar size in a bookshop, I spend slightly less; if I’m looking for a reference book of the same size, especially if it’s illustrated, the cost easily rises well above thirty euros. To assert that textbook cover prices are too high is effectively to acknowledge that one has not visited a bookshop for some time and, more importantly, to deny value not only to the work of those who produced the textbook but also to the very content it conveys—the usefulness of which, beyond the narrow aim of securing a good grade, is recognised by only a tiny minority. Right here beside me, I still keep the textbooks from my specialised subjects at sixth form, which would not look out of place in university lecture theatres and which I still open when a doubt or a question arises. The most expensive volume cost 58,500 lire (the current edition of the same book costs 43.90 euros): spread over thirty years of loyal service, that seems to me a reasonable sum.

This leads to the third cliché: textbooks cost a fortune and are useless; either teachers don’t use them, or students don’t use them. In this case, the issue is more complex. There are compulsory textbooks and non-compulsory textbooks. The former are those containing texts and exercises that are worked through in a targeted manner, and it is therefore necessary to have them in order to practise them. Non-mandatory textbooks, on the other hand, are interpretative and argumentative in nature (the standard philosophy textbook, for example, but also those on art or history) and aim to foster critical thinking by presenting a particular perspective that coexists alongside different ones: in this case, it is important to have any textbook at all, not necessarily the one adopted by the course – so much so that often, formally or informally, lecturers say that similar titles are also acceptable. I would be wary of a lecturer who knows only the textbook they are teaching from and who recites it, providing, rather than explanations, a service for the blind. Refusing to purchase the textbook because the teacher does not use it means failing to understand that, in order to do without it, one must first be familiar with many of them.

It is true, however, that the textbook has changed its purpose and, having been for generations of pupils a source of more or less pleasant afternoon exertion, now seems to have been reduced to a blueprint for preparing lessons: teachers study them – perhaps to fill in unacknowledged gaps in their own knowledge – rather than the pupils, who instead rely on shorthand notes from lessons, sometimes leading to misunderstandings of undoubted humour, or on the repetition of dreadful slides, if not directly on oral tradition. One of the reasons why we are a far more ignorant nation than we were some time ago is that we have decided that textbooks are an unnecessary expense. Why pay for a resource that we can make do without, albeit inadequately? The saving is immediate, but in the long run, ignorance costs more.

In an effort to avoid going along with the crowd, I can offer a few remarks based on my own experience (a quarter of a century of setting Italian Literature exams for Arts and Languages students fresh out of secondary school). 

To read, one needs to see others reading. Those who have well-read parents and well-stocked home libraries are fortunate. For everyone else, there is the public library—or rather, there would be, because many of my pupils have never set foot in a library. This is because there was no school library, or no local library, or it was too far away, or nobody ever informed them of its existence. So, generally speaking, rather than lectures, what’s needed is a good school library (not difficult to put together these days, given that people die and leave behind shelves full of books that nobody wants); and, even before that, you need a teacher who takes you there and shows you how it’s done, and who has enough charisma to make you want to be like him or her (‘Having an idiot as a role model makes you think twice about studying the subject that reduced him to that state’: E. Albinati and F. Timi, Tuttalpiù muoio, Rome, Fandango Libri 2006, p. 105). For this reason, when drafting the new National Guidelines for literature syllabuses, we recommended that teachers ensure pupils become familiar with libraries: after all, at that age, it is perhaps the only educational trip that really serves a purpose.

Having ruled out those pupils who simply do not read at all, what is particularly striking about the others (who make up the majority) is their lack of direction, in the sense that they read at random. Reading at random is fine at the age of eleven, if you have no guidance (I used to read at random, and look at me now); it is not fine at twenty, after thirteen years of compulsory schooling. At best, they have read a few ‘school’ books such as Il fu Mattia Pascal and La coscienza di Zeno (they usually do not know what ‘fu’ means), but they have taken little from them beyond a few equally schoolish labels (the ‘inept’, the ‘double’ and other rubbish). Increasingly, they have been reading young adult fiction, a genre about which I know almost nothing but which strikes me as generally dreadful; increasingly, they read exclusively fantasy, meaning that for them there is no such thing as ‘fantasy literature’ but rather, in separate categories, ‘fantasy’ and ‘literature’, and they are interested in the former. Some have, by chance, read a bit of Kafka or a few nineteenth-century classics. But—and this is the surprising and bitter thing—school does not seem to have provided them with a guide as to what is worth reading and what, after the age of twenty, is too immature to read. University arrives either too late or at an inopportune moment, since it is not guaranteed that students will have the time to read truly significant books (this morning, for example, a master’s student in Anglo-American studies admitted having never read a single line of Bellow, Hemingway, Faulkner, or Roth, and showed no embarrassment). After the library card, this map is the thing that, in my view, every secondary school and every literature teacher should give to their pupils. And then hope for the best, of course.

The figures paint a picture that cannot be ignored. According to DESI 2026, just 54.27 per cent of Italians possess at least basic digital skills. The European Union average stands at 60.40 per cent, whilst the Digital Decade 2030 programme has set a target of 80 per cent of the population. Italy’s lag is therefore by no means marginal: it sets the country apart not only from the European average, but above all from the minimum threshold deemed necessary to support economic growth, innovation and social inclusion.

The picture looks even more worrying when considering the professional workforce. ICT specialists account for just 3.8 per cent of total employment in Italy, compared with a European average of 5 per cent and a target of 10 per cent by 2030. In practical terms, this means that the country would need to almost triple its pool of digital professionals in less than a decade. No industrial policy, no investment in digital infrastructure, and no strategy on artificial intelligence will be able to produce lasting effects without suitably trained people.

The point, however, runs even deeper. It would be a mistake to continue viewing digital technology as a field reserved for IT specialists. Artificial intelligence, cyber security, data science, cloud computing and automation are redefining all professions: doctors, lawyers, economists, teachers, architects, journalists, biologists and civil servants.

For this reason, university policy should definitively move away from a sectoral approach. It is not enough simply to increase enrolment in STEM courses, however essential that may be. What is needed is a cultural overhaul of the entire higher education system.

Five policy guidelines appear to be priorities today.

The first is the introduction of a national Digital Core Curriculum: a set of compulsory digital skills for all university students, regardless of their degree programme. Data literacy, the critical use of artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, data management and the principles of programming should form the basis of the new academic literacy.

The second concerns the strengthening of the ICT provision through an increase in the number of places available, scholarships and interdisciplinary programmes, accompanied by targeted policies to boost the number of women in technology disciplines, which remains significantly lower than European standards.

The third involves transforming collaboration with businesses, research centres and public administrations from an occasional experience into a structural component of training programmes.

The fourth calls for the university to be given a new mission: to be the leading national player in lifelong learning. The obsolescence of skills brought about by artificial intelligence makes micro-credentials, modular certifications and continuous professional development programmes essential for workers throughout their working lives.

The fifth point concerns the governance system. A growing proportion of public funding should be linked not only to research output, but also to universities’ ability to develop certified digital skills, enhance the employability of graduates in technology-intensive sectors and build partnerships with local innovation ecosystems.

There is also a need to establish a permanent national observatory on digital skills, capable of integrating university data, professional requirements and European indicators to guide the planning of training provision.

Competitiveness will not depend solely on investment in infrastructure or the adoption of artificial intelligence. It will depend above all on the calibre of the people who are able to design, use and manage those technologies. The DESI 2026 clearly shows that Italy’s real bottleneck is not merely technological, but first and foremost educational. Universities are not simply one of the players in the digital transformation: they constitute its most strategic infrastructure.

Italy boasts world-renowned scientific excellence, entrepreneurial skills and creativity. What is lacking is a critical mass of digital skills capable of meeting European challenges. Whilst the Draghi Report highlights the urgent need to revitalise Europe’s competitiveness through innovation, research and human capital, Italy’s response must necessarily begin with the universities. It is in university lecture theatres, even before research laboratories or data centres, that the country’s technological sovereignty and its ability to compete in the knowledge economy are built.

Pierpaolo D’Urso
, Professor of Statistics and Data Science for Policy-Making, Dean of the Faculty of Political Science, Sociology and Communication at Sapienza – University of Rome

Member of Comstat

In Italy, as is well known, there are two inviolable rules: the first is that, whenever there is a problem on a social, national or global scale, schools are expected to rush to find a solution; the other is that for every petition there is an identical counter-petition, perhaps even with the same signatories. It so happens, therefore, that in the very same context of excessive heat, there are those who nevertheless realise that the Italian school system has the longest summer break (the comparative data on this point vary widely and reach hyperbolic figures, much like the mileage of the cycling races described by Stefano Benni); this situation causes serious hardship for parents, who have nowhere to send their youngest children for three months, and therefore ask the school to remain open beyond the end of term established half a century ago. Summer school should therefore be Schrödinger’s school, simultaneously open and closed, so as to satisfy both the pupils who complain about the heat and the parents who complain that they cannot afford to have their children at home for three months.

Then there are the air-conditioners; which, in fact, aren’t there. Or rather – as Luciano Capone explained very well in the Saturday 5th edition of Il Foglio – an inadequate sum was allocated for air-conditioning in schools, which at best allowed for the air-conditioning of a few classrooms; a sum incomparably lower than that allocated during the Covid pandemic by the Conte government for wheeled desks (which, however, when sent hurtling down the corridor at top speed, can provide the occupant with a fleeting sensation of coolness) and paltry compared to the money squandered on the 110 per cent tax bonus, perhaps to suggest to pupils that they are better off at home, especially if their parents have renovated it – but parents do not want to keep them at home and are trying to offload them onto the state education system. It should also be noted that, whilst the installation of air-conditioning in classrooms has been enthusiastically undertaken by many schools, it is taking place against a backdrop of widespread dilapidation of school buildings. Do you remember Renzi’s famous ‘Buona Scuola’ reform, the only sensible reform of the system in recent times and, as such, opposed by everyone – headteachers, teachers, pupils, parents, trade unions and passers-by? The prevailing rhetoric at the time was that it was a waste to hire new teachers when there was no toilet paper in the toilets. Setting aside that rather unflattering comparison regarding the duties of teaching staff, the fact remains: many schools have undertaken even substantial refurbishments, yet there is still a shortage of toilet paper.

Let alone the ‘influencers’, then. It is worth recalling that the education system had protested vigorously against them during the Fridays for Future movement: between 2018 and 2019, numerous schools had even endorsed the weekly absences of pupils following Greta Thunberg’s example – albeit rather short-sighted – so that they could demonstrate against the use of plastic (which would soon prove rather useful for anti-Covid face masks) and high electricity consumption (read: air-conditioners). Since the rule holds that for every petition there is always a counter-petition, it will be interesting to see how many of those who protested yesterday against other people’s air-conditioners are now protesting in favour of having them installed for themselves, or how many of them stayed away from school on those pleasantly breezy Fridays to halt the climate apocalypse, and now want to keep schools closed for a further three weeks because the climate apocalypse has not been halted by their absence.

Teachers of older pupils also know that a classic winter scene at school involves the school representative going round the classrooms with a portable thermometer to check that the temperature in each room reaches the minimum required for lessons to take place. Heating systems are, in fact, often outdated, whilst draughts never go out of fashion, and, when the cold becomes unbearable, pupils have to go home (much to the delight of their parents, I imagine, who would rather have them anywhere but there). If we are heading towards a future of extreme temperatures – a future that has already begun – postponing the start of term because it is too hot could lead to an automatic extension of the winter holidays because it is too cold, in defiance of the 215 days of teaching stipulated by the regulations.

How can we move forward? No one knows. The impression is that the problem lies further back in the system and that, before ensuring a suitable temperature in every classroom, we need to ask ourselves what we’re actually doing at school, given that we have to sit there sweating or shivering. In this regard, too, two typically Italian rules apply, which are obviously at odds with one another: the first is that what counts most at school is physical attendance – in terms of the number of teaching days, the total number of hours teachers are on duty, the time spent by teachers in the classroom staring into space, and passive acquiescence to tedious monologues passed off as civic education or refresher courses; the other is that this attendance must be as brief as possible, since lessons last only half a day for nine months, and it is not uncommon for schools to remain ghost buildings for hours, days or weeks. It is clear that, if the climate breaks down, so too must the school: for example, by ensuring lessons in air-conditioned classrooms are staggered across different time slots; or by making use of the cooler hours (never mind if they are inconvenient for parents: they must resign themselves to the idea that school is for their children, not for them); making the most of distance learning whenever in-person attendance is not strictly required; tailoring timetables to the actual educational needs of individual pupils rather than to class groups lacking uniformity and coherence; and, as a last resort, taking pupils to have lessons in cool locations appropriate to what is being taught at any given time – such as museums, shopping centres and public gardens.

It should be borne in mind that such proposals are likely to prove electorally counterproductive, whereas merely complaining about the heat and the cold without taking concrete action is often perceived as a more effective strategy (another ‘made in Italy’ pair of contradictory rules: everyone is always complaining about everything; yet anyone who attempts to introduce change is swiftly discredited). However, if the objective is not merely to lose an election but to do so in spectacular fashion, one option would be to propose exploiting a technicality in Article 12 of the well-known Law 517/1977. By changing the start date of the school year, the text also emphasised that ‘school buildings and equipment may be used outside school hours for activities that fulfil the school’s role as a centre for cultural, social and civic development’. Since work and productivity undoubtedly promote culture, society and civilisation, you could propose that private organisations enter into agreements to use school buildings and equipment for events and activities they deem appropriate, in return for funding structural refurbishments for which they would be explicitly credited; air-conditioners work just the same, even when they have a sponsor’s or benefactor’s name written on them. It would constitute an immediate solution to every problem. Yet it will never be adopted.

This thought occurred to me upon learning of the forthcoming closure of Rai Scuola, which on digital terrestrial channel 57 is to be replaced by a programme showcasing local excellence and village festivals. On this matter, Enrico Bucci expressed his views in "Il Foglio" in a highly informed and entirely convincing manner; I have nothing to add to his article. Whilst the closure of Rai Scuola is certainly ill-advised, I am more concerned – thinking of the many cases similar to that of my pupil – with asking whether television today is truly a useful vehicle for learning, if not, indeed, the ideal way to reach a vast audience that is potentially – and perhaps unwittingly – eager to learn something.

The pupil I told you about did not know the Enlightenment well enough to realise that it was precisely in the 18th century that, for the first time, certain educators began presenting content to learners via illustrated plates which, however, rather than being bound into a book as was customary, were placed inside a cube-shaped box that served as a sort of multi-panel frame. Without realising it, those educators had invented educational television, having realised two things: that attention is best captured by a screen (in the broadest sense) capable of isolating content from the rest of the world; and that the tedium of lessons can be combated through the judicious use of the unusual and variety.

Rai Scuola has been complying with the first of these requirements since well before it was called Rai Scuola. Without even mentioning “Non è mai troppo tardi”, through which Maestro Manzi attempted to teach the Italian masses – who were still struggling with reading, writing and arithmetic – to read, write and do maths; and leaving aside its predecessor “Telescuola”, which in 1958 launched with the ambitious project of providing supplementary education courses for those living in areas without secondary schools, it suffices to recall that in the 1990s, Rai’s late-night programming rivalled the racy programmes on local channels with its lecture-style lessons on trigonometry or the historical geography of the ancient world – though it must be acknowledged that, with hindsight, it is difficult to tell whether the aim was to keep the population awake or to provide an effective antidote to insomnia. There were even those who recorded the lectures at night and watched the videotapes the following afternoon or evening, in a rudimentary attempt at a video podcast that made up for the lack of opportunity to attend those same lectures in a university lecture theatre.

The great merit of Rai Scuola was therefore to provide a framework for educational content – an oasis of learning that previously stood apart from a context lacking in stimuli (the lack of secondary schools, which the old ‘Telescuola’ programme used to compensate for) and which now, instead, offers a refuge from a context where stimuli are excessive, allowing pupils to focus for a quarter of an hour or half an hour on a topic of their own interest, without being distracted by constant notifications or the excessive workload that parents impose on their children for fear that they will grow up without any hobbies. Where the internet has, however, partly fallen short is perhaps the other aspect: combating boredom with novelty, as eighteenth-century educators did by turning the cube; not because of the scientific quality of the programmes, but due to the intrinsic structure of the medium itself.

Television was the main source of information for the masses from roughly the late 1950s to the late 1990s. I am not referring solely to news programmes; I mean precisely the transmission of implicit information concerning speech, behaviour and dress. ‘The telly said so’ was the assertion used to confirm the truth of something: just as television assured viewers through entertainment that they would be entertained, through films that they would see exactly what had been shown at the cinema, and through news programmes that they would have a front-row seat to unfolding events, so too, through educational programmes, it conveyed to them certified, sound and, broadly speaking, essential knowledge. The success of Rai Scuola and similar initiatives was, in fact, to be measured in terms of credibility, rather than in terms of a inevitably meagre audience.

What has changed, however, is the status of truth. Accustomed to a television that lies or deceives, viewers have shifted the focus of their beliefs to other media; this does not mean that these are more reliable than television – as demonstrated by the fact that many people fall for fabricated news stories and give credence to doctored images – but rather that television is no longer regarded as the benchmark of truth, with serious consequences for the acquisition of knowledge. A television that is not trusted is a television that cannot teach anything. Worse still, it is a medium that bores, since, having been supplanted by other forms of communication, it has lost its initial sense of novelty and variety, ultimately having the same effect – a detrimental one, in Italy – as the usual books. The result is that, nowadays, suggesting to someone that they watch a TV programme to learn something is tantamount to telling my aforementioned pupil to stop watching my videos and come and listen to my live lesson. In which I say exactly the same things, but I’m incredibly boring. 

I’m not talking about ancient history. When it comes to the Greeks and Romans, at least in theory, we all agree that they represent the cradle of our civilisation. The same applies to Greek and Latin, and to literature, philosophy and art, and to the entire traditional structure of our secondary schools. It’s a subject of study that’s useful precisely because it’s not useful. The Middle Ages might still be let off the hook, but what about the modern era and, above all, the contemporary world?

Of course, it would make no sense whatsoever to question the purpose of studying modern mathematics and science, modern languages, law or economics. Still less to question their systematic, largely non-historical presentation. The events of the past, on the other hand, retraced in chronological order – why should they be of interest to schools? There must surely be an extensive specialist bibliography on the subject, but as it forms no part of teachers’ syllabuses or school curricula, we shall disregard it. There will probably be much more talk of roots and identity, of temporal perspective and historical significance, and of the necessary groundwork required to project oneself into the future. Of the indispensable continuity whereby the pupil should memorise an unbroken chronological sequence of trivial facts—dates above all—capable of linking them retrospectively and with confidence at least as far back as the ancient Sumerians. Then, having synchronised with the current historical process, having just come of age and graduated from school, they will finally be able to plunge into the flow of time and float through it with awareness. It is a pity that it is precisely this final alignment that is lacking.

And yet a gradual narrowing of focus is envisaged. The first year of the three-year course spans no fewer than seven centuries, from the 11th to the 17th; the second is limited to the following two hundred years; the third and final year is devoted to the 20th century and the new millennium. One might expect contemporary history to have a special status, to be studied at least in greater detail than earlier periods. And yet we always end up back at square one. I recall that as a student, at the end of secondary school, I could not fathom that we had barely managed to cover the Second World War. The last forty years were missing – the very ones that seemed most urgent to learn about. Now that another forty years have passed, I have to conclude that we are still stuck there. A classicist would say that the contemporary era is like the torment of Tantalus or like Achilles chasing Zeno’s tortoise.

Even today, pupils seem, understandably, more interested in current affairs than in events of the distant past. Those who pay attention to them note that, whilst at school, certain topics are only accessed via the media, social media, Wikipedia and podcasts, or through conversations at home and with friends. In truth, school textbooks make it a point of honour to keep up to date in real time. They cover everything, and do so with ostensible neutrality. Following ministerial guidelines, they focus on European political events, and occasionally venture into other continents (even the United States is treated as a side issue) or into social and economic spheres. Sometimes they include reproductions of documents or a few pages of historical analysis. They all tend to fall into the same innocent blunders, with some consequences for the historical record – from Kievan Rus’ being passed off as the birth of Mother Russia (a fate already written for those peoples) to Israel being misrepresented as compensation for the Holocaust at the expense of the mythical Palestinian people (an indelible original sin). These days they avoid overt partisanship, unlike those textbooks which, at the turn of the millennium, warned students that with Berlusconi’s ‘entry into politics’, fascist dictatorship was returning to our country. Superfluous controversies ensued. These were, however, merely the final pages; there was no real danger that anyone would actually go so far as to present that content in the classroom, barring a few pathological cases.

In schools, there are real problems with time and organisation, but delays are also deliberate choices. On the one hand, it is thoughtfully argued that the historical distance essential for treating the facts with objective rigour is lacking. There is said to be a lack of time for events to settle, for them to be viewed with a cooler head, and for the necessary distance from the very humanity one would wish to study dispassionately (the dividing line, however, despite the passing of decades, always falls around 1945). On the other hand, the closer one gets to the present day, the more awkward things become; there is a risk of accusations of bias, of exploitation, and of playing politics in the classroom. It is true that many teachers proudly repeat, using somewhat hackneyed slogans, that politics is everywhere and that one cannot do one’s job properly without engaging in politics; yet they all end up losing themselves in the ‘condemnation’ of impending wars or in denouncing fanciful, distant genocides. In short, these are merely fashionable topics, where teachers move confidently in a herd-like manner.

The early 20th century largely conforms to a widely held narrative. It consists of the usual ready-made clichés, dear to the public spirit of our country. And where texts merely allude to these, lecturers may lay into them in no uncertain terms; even students may add their own two cents. A typical example? The Great Depression of 1929. According to the textbooks, it was caused by excessive market freedom and overproduction. The remedy, as F. D. Roosevelt and J. M. Keynes would demonstrate, was state intervention, through subsidies and major public works (thus satisfying both the left and the right). However, economic growth in the US only resumed with the country’s entry into the Second World War. This also confirms the principle that there is always a decisive economic factor behind wars (sixth-formers continue to insist that religious beliefs cannot really lead to conflicts, despite having spent their third year studying nothing but religious wars). Economic explanations also apply to the causes of the two world wars, fascism and Nazism, and everything else. The blame is always laid at the door of capitalist dynamics and class relations. In-depth study sheets are devoted to totalitarianism, whilst general discussions use the term with ease. Students recognise that Nazism was totalitarian, as is generally acknowledged of Stalinism (though not communism). Opinions on fascism vary depending on the textbooks used or who knows what else.

The second half of the twentieth century, as we were saying, still seems like a complex issue that is difficult to tackle. If there is a little time left at the end of the year, we proceed cautiously, touching on major themes or specific events with some social implications. We select a few paragraphs, perhaps catering to the students’ preferences and entrusting them with the task of exploring the topics through specific research – preferably in groups – using journalistic and television resources. The fixed points of reference are always the UN, NGOs and, to some extent, Europe. How can anything of educational value emerge from this? At home, however, the guiding light is always the Constitution; for the rest, there are those who are passionate about judicial journalism. It does not take much, then, to imagine what it might mean to tackle the Bologna massacre at school – just to mention a case whose forty-sixth anniversary was recently marked. After all, we must admit that, in the Italian school system, the entire twentieth century is a minefield. A past that will not fade away. Let us now suppose, just to give an example similar to the previous one, that we wish to discuss the Sant’Anna di Stazzema massacre at school. A few days ago, the usual commemorative ceremony took place, presided over this time by a baffling orator who, incidentally, is a politician. What can one say? Should we just pretend nothing happened? Could we discuss it with the pupils? Or would it be better to leave it alone?

Now that AI exists, the floodgates have opened. Since it is impossible to ban it, every effort is being made to regulate it. The University of Modena and Reggio has made 30,000 licences available to lecturers and students – almost one per person – specifying that ‘AI may be used as a support for understanding complex concepts, developing ideas, carrying out self-assessment activities and reworking information’. But understanding concepts and reworking information is precisely the point of studying. If we delegate this to AI, it is tantamount to encouraging people to stop thinking. Moreover, there is no detection software efficient enough, partly because the distinction between human and artificial writing is now too subtle. So, what should we do? Return to the oral tradition of the Italian university. Asking students to churn out reports is a practice that originated in nineteenth-century German seminars and was subsequently exported to the Anglo-Saxon world, but which, given the times, is proving to be a double-edged sword. Oral exams take longer and are more demanding for everyone, granted. But that is precisely why they are more useful and revealing. As for dissertations, it would be a very good idea to do away with them. Why expect such a complex writing task from young people who can barely read a novel?

Let’s seize the opportunity: instead of asking the two customary questions based on a pile of text written by who knows whom – questions that wouldn’t even stump Pinocchio and would just make the audience yawn – let’s turn the degree examination into a serious and in-depth discussion of a topic agreed upon between the professors and the student. Only in this way will the student’s knowledge of the subject, their ability to argue a case and to respond to objections be put to the test. AI has not yet learnt to break a sweat in front of an examination board. And without butterflies in the stomach and performance anxiety, what sort of university would it be?

In the interview, the minister also responded to the proposal to withdraw residence permits from foreign nationals who do not send their children to school: “This is another issue we are considering; it is a continuation of what we had already provided for in the Caivano decree when we decided to penalise parents who do not send their children to school. This penalty has led to a sharp drop in school drop-out rates in certain areas of the country.” This concern, however, is not without reason. For several weeks now, Vannacci has been ahead of the Lega in the polls and, according to the latest SWG survey, stands at 7.2 per cent, just 0.2 percentage points behind Forza Italia, the second-largest party in the governing coalition. The government’s response to this right-wing opposition has therefore shifted towards a greater focus on identity-related issues – the very strengths of the National Front (FN), which has even gone so far as to propose separate classes for foreign pupils.

It is true that the number of children without Italian citizenship has risen by 10 per cent over the last five years, reaching a total of 911,578 in the 2024/25 school year, according to data from the Single School Portal. But it is equally true that this percentage increase is also due to the demographic crisis, which has led to an 8.3 per cent decrease in the number of Italian pupils between 2020 and 2025 (-612,000), bringing the native student population to a low of 6,788,990. Therefore, based on the figures cited by the Ministry of Education itself, foreign pupils in Italian classrooms account for only 12 per cent of the total enrolment. Admittedly, this figure is a national average and may not reflect the specific circumstances of individual classrooms across the peninsula – indeed, in the north, the proportion of non-Italian pupils exceeds 17 per cent, in central Italy the figure stands at 13 per cent, whilst in the south and on the islands it is 4.6 per cent – but the fact remains that fears of classes with a ‘very high number of foreign pupils’ are largely unfounded. This is also because some of those considered foreign pupils may obtain Italian citizenship upon reaching the age of majority.

But this is not the first time the Minister for Education has spoken about the presence of foreign pupils in schools across the peninsula and the concept of ‘Italianness’. Two weeks ago, during Question Time in the Chamber of Deputies, when pressed by Fn MP Rossano Sasso for an explanation regarding the punishment meted out to two pupils at a secondary school in Cesena who, on the last day of term, had displayed a banner reading ‘Italy for Italians’, he replied: “I wish to make it clear straight away that not only is there nothing objectionable about this statement, but it is certainly one with which one can agree, as it encompasses all the citizens of our country. It is, moreover, a phrase that has been repeated on numerous occasions by the political movements that make up the current government.”

The modern American research system was founded on very different principles. In 1945, Vannevar Bush, an engineer from my own university, MIT, published the report ‘Science, the Endless Frontier’, proposing a three-way pact. The government would fund research; scientists, rather than politicians, would assess its merit; and society would benefit from it. That model forms the basis of the contemporary American university and of countless inventions in our daily lives – from neural networks to the internet.

Peer review certainly has its limitations. It can turn into ‘peer reassurance’: even we academics are not immune to herd behaviour. Furthermore, in recent years, other pressures have emerged. Various requirements relating to diversity, equity and inclusion introduced during the Biden administration have introduced non-scientific criteria into the evaluation of research – precisely the problem that the current proposals claim to want to resolve.

These are real problems that warrant a rethink. But the solution to flawed peer review is better peer review, not government oversight. Replacing scientific judgement with political alignment risks destroying the very engine of innovation we were discussing earlier. None of the great scientific discoveries of the past was inevitable; on the contrary, each was a long and uncertain gamble on ideas that might well have failed.

This is precisely the sort of research that a system of funding which can be withdrawn at any time risks eliminating: not by openly banning it, but by making it clear to every scientist that a multi-year project can be scrapped as soon as the political climate changes. At that point, the most daring discoveries are not even attempted.

So what should be done? In chats amongst colleagues at MIT over the past few weeks, several ideas have emerged. I proposed dividing the peer review process into two stages. The first would be to assess the methodological soundness of a piece of research, following traditional procedures, perhaps supplemented by artificial intelligence. The second would be to allow the relevance of the work to be discussed openly from the bottom up, enabling ideas to compete over time. Some agencies in New Zealand and Switzerland are already moving in this direction.

If enacted in its current form, the regulation in question would risk undermining American leadership in science. In "Urn Burial", Sir Thomas Browne captured the cruelty of written history. “Erostratus, who set fire to the Temple of Diana, lives on; he who built it is almost forgotten.” History remembers the arsonist more readily than the architect.

For much of the last century, America has been the architect of modern science. It would be a bitter epitaph if, on its 250th anniversary, it were to be remembered not for what it has built, but for what it has destroyed.

Carlo Ratti

An architect and engineer, he teaches at the Politecnico di Milano and at MIT in Boston, where he heads the Senseable City Lab