Minister Valditara: “For violent pupils, socially useful jobs seem educational to me”

For those students “who don’t have the ability to respect the rules and be responsible, one thing that has always seemed to me very educational is socially useful jobs”. This was stated by the Minister of Education and Merit, Giuseppe Valditara, who at the “North Direction” event in Milan spoke of the need to find solutions to counter the episodes of violence involving children at school: “We must focus on two themes: restoring authority to teachers and focusing on respect for teachers, other students and public goods, which must be respected». In this sense, the minister announced that he had “created a table to find solutions because it is an issue that needs solutions, whether it be personalized teaching, help from a psychologist, a more effective sanction”.

In this sense, the role of teachers is crucial «who must always be aware of the extremely important role they are called to play. Authoritativeness also comes from an improvement in salary: we have tried to do something in this sense, it is still little, but it is certainly one of the most important contractual renewals for a long time now”. Valditara also spoke of the phenomenon of NEETs, or those young people who do not study, do not work and are not engaged in training courses: «I will launch a proposal in the next few days so that these young people fulfill at least one training obligation. We cannot accept that hundreds of thousands of young people live on the backs of families and society”.

In fact, that of the NEETs in Italy is «one of the most serious dramas affecting our youth, they are kids who don’t have the will to live and who float. That’s where we’ll have to intervene.” Then the question of merit returns: «Unfortunately this school is the school of classism: from the 1950s to 1975 a great social elevator was set in motion. In ’75 it stopped, and today we took a step back. The challenge instead is to bring out the talents and abilities that are in each of us. We need a school that values ​​everyone’s potential. The minister is also working on school construction: “We are carrying out a great deal of monitoring at a national level, because we are fully convinced that the tragedies of the past – we will commemorate one in the next few days – must never repeat themselves again, so I want this issue, which it is a very burning and decisive issue, not only for teachers but also for children, it must be tackled with great decision».

The education minister then replies to the president of the Calabria region, Roberto Occhiuto, who would keep the school out of the autonomy game: «I think there will certainly be time to make a good reflection and to find useful solutions for the Italian school and for the territories”.