The administration of Premier
Matteo Renzi on Wednesday unveiled a school reform package that
includes hiring 150,000 teachers by September 2015, according to
guidelines posted on a government website.
Renzi also intends to make it simpler to hire new teachers,
eliminate cumbersome waiting lists that reportedly can last for
years, and cut substitute teaching.
Writing on the website, Renzi said that teachers must be
hired on their merits and not merely seniority.
"We say enough to temps and substitute teachers, we must
have the courage (to hire teachers on merit)," he said.
Italy currently has 600,800 full-time teachers, while
another 154,000 work as temps.
The so-called 'schools package' is part of efforts by
Renzi's government to kickstart the Italian economy, which has
slipped back into recession, and reportedly includes planned
investment of one billion euros on top of funds already made
available for a school building programme announced earlier this
year.
Earlier on Wednesday, Renzi told Sole 24 Ore financial
daily that his government intends to cut spending by 20 billion
euros to free up resources for priorities in research and
education, without raising taxes.
The cuts could take the form of a 3% reduction across
government ministries, Renzi explained.
The government's school reform plan would entail
far-reaching changes for students as well as staff.
The novelties begin in primary school, where kids would get
musical and physical education classes, while mandatory
foreign-language classes would begin in elementary school, and
high schoolers would see beefed-up art history, computer
science, and economics courses.
As well, the government would introduce mandatory
work-study programs in technical institutes, upping the budget
for such programs from 11 million euros this year to 100 million
euros going forward.
Another innovation will be apprenticeships in traditional
crafts that are at risk of being forgotten, and the roll-out of
an experimental internship program in the last two years of high
school.
The package would partially rely on some 800 million euros
in European funds for the 2014-2020 period, but the government
also plans to woo the private sector.
Measures would include school bonuses for businesses and
foundations, a so-called School Guarantee program for firms that
headhunt in technical institutes, and a crowd-funding program,
with the State to match every euro donated by a private citizen
to the public school system.
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