Almost four million pupils in nine Italian regions and one autonomous returned to school on Monday under strict measures to combat the spread of COVID-19.
Among these measures is the new obligation that requires all adults that enter a school, including parents, to have the Green Pass vaccine passport.
The last two school years were badly affected by the pandemic, which frequently made it necessary to conduct lessons via distance learning.
But Education Minister Patrizio Bianchi said Monday that this school year will be different.
"It is a joy to see the classes full of young people," Bianchi told Sky television. "The schools must not just reopen, they must also go back to being at the centre of our community.
"This year the school world has the job of making us feel (united as) a country".
The minister said that it will no longer be possible to put a whole region on distance learning in the case of spikes in COVID contagion, saying that interventions would be targetted and "surgical".
He stressed that 93% of school staff were vaccinated for the coronavirus (in addition to via vaccination, it is possible to have the Green Pass if you have recovered from COVID or if you have recently tested negative for it).
Pupils still have to wear facemasks in class, but Bianchi said he has not given up on the idea of removing this obligation for classes in which all the pupils are vaccinated.
The regions where 3,865,365 pupils are returning to class are Abruzzo, Basilicata, Emilia-Romagna, Lazio, Lombardy, Piedmont, Umbria, Veneto and Valle d'Aosta plus the Province of Trento.
Some parts of the country opened their schools last week and class will resume in the rest of the nation in the coming days.
Students staged a big demonstration outside the education ministry in Rome overnight to protest against the state of the nation's schools and the problem of so-called overcrowded 'chicken-coop' classes.
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