Save The Children in government: “We guarantee citizenship to the children of our country”

The bell is ready to ring in Italian schools. But the opportunities are not the same for all the girls and boys who are preparing to go back to school. The first return to school after the official end of the pandemic in fact tells of a school landscape still full of disparities. Starting from the possibility of entering a school: only 28 out of 100 children between 0 and 2 years can access kindergartens and early childhood services38.06 percent of primary school classes are full-time, just over half of the children have canteen service.

The data is all collected in the report «The World in one classroom. A survey on cultural pluralism in Italian schools»presented by Save the Children, the international organization has always been at the side of boys and girls, in view of the reopening of schools: a snapshot of the educational inequalities that compromise the growth paths of boys and girls who represent the future of our country. And which are largely not yet recognized by Italy, we are talking about the beyond 800,000 children in fact but not in law who attend school but who for Italy are not part of this country. For all of them, Save The Children has chosen to launch a petition, to ask Parliament to reform the law on Italian citizenship for children born or raised in Italy. Because recognizing their belonging to the community is an opportunity for our country. An opportunity we are missing.

“The educational path of these 800,000 children is marked by obstacles and difficulties that appear from childhood”explains Daniela Fatara, Director General of Save the Children. «Starting from access to services, to verifying one’s school career, to recognizing the validity of qualifications obtained in another country or to full participation in school and extracurricular activities. For this reason, broad interventions and policies are needed that support the opportunities offered by a multicultural society in schools and in society and allow the talents of all male and female students to flourish, something of which, moreover, our country has an enormous needed for its development.

From childhood, the paths of those who have or do not have citizenship are profoundly different. Only 77.9 percent of children with non-Italian citizenship are enrolled in and attend kindergarten (percentage that rises to 83.1% for those born in Italy) against 95.1% of Italians. In practical life, this data translates into distant and different educational paths from the first years of life that affect results and future opportunities.

“School is the space par excellence for meeting and exchange between children and young people of different origins and the relationship is often the key to starting a successful process of social inclusion”, continues the director Daniela Fatarella. “For this reason, we ask the Government to invest resources to enhance cultural pluralism in schools, enhancing the presence of cultural mediators in institutions with a high presence of pupils with a migrant background, but also Italian courses and extracurricular socialization activities, especially in more disadvantaged areas and those at risk of poverty where families with both parents born abroad are concentrated».

But investments in education are not increasing. Although it has often been said during the pandemic to put students and school education back at the center, after the emergency the percentage of GDP invested by our country in this sector has fallen again to 4.1 per cent, against a European average of 4.8 per cent, to which must be added the lack of services such as nursery schools, canteens and full-time services. The lack of opportunities encourages early school leaving which in Italy is higher than the European average. Finally, the demographic decline that also affects the school: compared to 7 years ago, almost 71,000 fewer children have crossed the threshold of primary school.