Invalsi, the pandemic is not over for the Italian school. Primary alarm

ROME – We have returned to school without pandemic interruptions, for two seasons now, but the difficulties of children (one million in the second and fifth grade), adolescents (570,000 for the eighth grade) and young people (over a million in the second and upper fifth) you can still see them all.

The 2022-2023 season forces the entire country to deal seriously, first of all, with primary school, where, the experts explain from Invalsi, the National Institute for the Evaluation of the Education and Training System, the results show a weakening ” in all disciplines observed. In particular, the results of the Italian and Mathematics tests in second grade are lower than those of 2019 and 2021 (pandemic and Dad seasons) and in line with those of last year. In the fifth grade, the results in the year that has just ended are lower than those of the previous seasons, including 2022, in all disciplines. And here English is included, both reading and listening. It is an alarm to be spread for a school cycle – elementary schools – an example and worldwide pride of Italian teaching.

Primary, it goes back to the basic level

Keeping the focus on elementary school, 69 percent of Italians reach at least basic level: it was 72 percent last year. Molise, Basilicata and Umbria are the regions with the highest quotas of students who reach this level (from the third band upwards), Calabria and Sicily those with the lowest quotas.

In Mathematics, 64 percent reach the basic level: they are six percentage points less than in 2022. Molise, the Autonomous Province of Trento and Basilicata are the regions with the best results in this rate, Calabria, Sicily and Sardinia are the most Bass.

The general decline is also recorded in the fifth year of primary school. In Italian, 74 percent is at the basic level, and it was 80 just a year ago. Molise, Umbria, Abruzzo and Friuli-Venezia Giulia have the highest quotas of pupils at the sufficient level, Sicily has the lowest quota. Again, in Mathematics today in this school segment we are at 63 percent: minus three on 2022. Always Calabria, Sicily and Sardinia at the bottom of the rankings.

English results, even those, are declining in the fifth grade. 87 per cent of pupils are at level A1 in reading (-7 per cent) while in the listening test the figure is 81 per cent, down four points. Calabria, Sicily and Sardinia remain the regions with the highest quotas of students who do not reach the required A1 in both the reading and listening tests.

In middle school, the decline stopped

The tests of the Third Media indicate that the decline in Italian and Mathematics observed between 2019 and 2021 has stopped, but a trend reversal has not yet been recorded. The results of English (listening and reading) are instead improving.

At national level, students who achieve at least adequate results are, in Italian, 62 percent (one percentage point more than in 2022, unchanged from 2021); in Mathematics 56 per cent (unchanged from 2021 and 2022); in English reading (level A2) 80 per cent (+2 percentage points compared to 2022 and +4 points compared to 2021); in English listening (always A2) 62 per cent (+3 percentage points compared to 2022, +5 points compared to 2021 and +11 points compared to 2018, the start of the survey).

Superiors, in Italian -3 compared to 2022

Taking the targets set by national indications as points of reference, it can be observed that in the second year of high school, in the Italian discipline, 63 per cent of students reach the basic level, and this is an alarming figure: they are three percentage points less than in 2022 and seven points less than in 2019 (the tests did not take place in 2020 and 2021).

In Mathematics, 55 percent are on the sufficient level (one point more than in 2022, but even 7 percentage points less than in 2019).

In fifth grade, English grows

The 2023 results indicate that for the classes that took the Maturity exam between June and July, the decline in Italian and Mathematics observed between 2019 and 2021 has almost stopped, but a turnaround is not yet seen. In Italian, 51 per cent of students reach the basic level, which is one percentage point less than last year. The fact that half of the boys remain insufficient in the key discipline, goes without saying, is a tragic fact. In Mathematics, at least sufficient high school graduates remain exactly half, 50 percent.

The results of English (both listening and reading) in the fifth grade are constantly improving. 54 percent of young people reach B2 in the reading test (+2 compared to 2022) and 41 percent in the listening test (+3 compared to 2022 and +6 since the start of the survey, in 2019).

South, 6 out of 10 bad in Mate and second language

As we have seen, as early as the second primary, slight territorial differences begin to emerge, more marked in the fifth and more evident for Mathematics and English listening.

The difference between the values ​​of the individual classes – another national problem – becomes a problem in the South. Primary schools in the South struggle more to guarantee equal opportunities for all, with obvious negative effects on subsequent school grades.

As regards the averages, the territorial differences remain very large. In Campania, Calabria, Sicily and Sardinia there is a greater number of students with low achievement levels (at most level 2), which is around 50 per cent of the school population, in Italian; 55-60 per cent in Mathematics; 35-40 per cent in English reading and 55-60 per cent in English listening.

In high school, the North-South distances are further accentuated, significantly in Mathematics, where the difference in the fifth year reaches 31 percentage points. In Italian, the geographical gap, always in the last year of the entire school curriculum, reaches 23 percentage points.

Early school leaving decreases

President Invalsi, Robert Ricci, explains: “The availability of census data on learning, comparable on a national basis, makes it possible to identify students who, although not dispersed in a formal sense, finish their schooling without having acquired the fundamental skills, therefore with limited prospects of inclusion in the society as happens to students who have not completed secondary school”. It is implicit or hidden school dropout, a phenomenon of recent seasons: students who leave the fifth grade unprepared, underqualified.

The implied dispersion actually drops by one point, to 8.7 per cent. In 2019 it stood at 7 percent to rise to 9.8 in 2021, due to long periods of suspension of face-to-face lessons. In 2022, a slight trend reversal was already observed at the national level, going to 9.7 percent.

The greatest declines in 2023 were recorded in Calabria (-5 percentage points), Puglia (-2.9 percentage points), Sardinia (-2.8 percentage points) and Sicily (-2.4 percentage points). At an absolute level, hidden dispersion is 19 percent in Campania, 15.9 in Sardinia, 13.6 in Sicily, 13 in Calabria and 10.6 in Basilicata.