Valditara on basic income: “Stop those who do not fulfill compulsory education”

ROME. «Providing the obligation to complete the school curriculum for those who have illegally interrupted it or a professional training course in the case of people with a higher education qualification but not employed or engaged in training updates, under penalty of loss of income in both cases, or any welfare measure that will replace it from 2024″. This is what the Minister of Education and Merit Giuseppe Valditara declares after having commissioned a research which shows that “in Italy there are 364,101 recipients of basic income”, of these “a good 11,290 have only an elementary school certificate or even no qualification, and another 128,710 only the title of middle school”. The research concerns young people aged between 18 and 29 who are income earners. “These kids prefer to receive income rather than study and train to build their own dignified life plan. The income linked to the tolerated illegality of failing to complete compulsory education» continues the Minister. “It is morally unacceptable: it would mean legitimizing and even rewarding a violation of the law”, commented the minister, defining the outcome of the research as “surprising and disturbing” and announcing that he had elaborated “a proposal which shows how the word Merit in my vision and of the government is not a rhetorical tinsel, but constitutes a precise political direction”.

“Even the perception of income by a young person who has higher education qualifications, has no personal or family impediments, but does not look for a job, or invest in training himself, is not economically and culturally sustainable”, continues the Minister. «A boy cannot consciously renounce to cultivate his talents in any form, and at the same time be paid by the State, or by Italian citizens. The Grand Alliance for Education and for Merit that I launched implies, like all alliances, the principle of responsibility. There is no merit without responsibility.” “I hear that cutting income would be inhuman”, concludes the Minister “It seems inhuman to me to live with illegality, to trample on the right to study, to educate children to maintain themselves at the expense of society rather than to believe in themselves and in the possibility to improve their living conditions”.