The Italian school at the time of the pandemic: passed or rejected?

With the start of the new school year, the Italian school is facing a series of problems, old and new, including the return of face-to-face lessons, after the year of distance learning due to the pandemic. But what is the real situation of the Italian school at the time of the pandemic? The first absolute data indicates that in the school year 2019/2020 81% of Italian schools are state-owned, 19% equal, i.e. those institutions included in the national education system, but which are not managed by the state and have freedom of orientation. cultural and educational organization. Again in the same school year, there are 51,164 state schools throughout the country with a number of students equal to 6,568,173, with a higher concentration in Southern Italy. There are 12,603 ​​private schools with a total number of students of 337,742, mostly concentrated in the North West. The general picture of the Italian school that follows takes shape through the analysis carried out by Adnkronos in collaboration with Expleo on data and statistics provided by the Ministry of Education, University and Research. In particular, the data provided by the Single School Data Portal, the tool made available by the Ministry of Education for accessing information on the school, refer to the last five school years between 2015/2016 and 2019/2020 and for what it concerns the PON, the Miur National Operational Program, for the years from 2014/2015 to 2019/2020. The Italian school in numbers: staff and students There are some important concepts to keep in mind. The term “school” indicates the complex or each seat belonging to a specific didactic circle. The teaching circle is the set of structures, or schools, of the same territory. The entries of tenured teachers take place through two channels: half of the hires must come from the merit rankings, the other half from the rankings upon exhaustion (Gae ). It should be noted that to date both channels are practically exhausted: the winners of the last competition of 2016 are in the professorship, the other basin has been “emptied” following the Renzi government bill on the “Good School”. Vacant chairs are covered by the annual alternates who come mostly from the institute rankings for those who are not qualified in the III bracket or from the so-called “made available” (Mad). The teacher is a woman Out of a total of 716,483 permanent teachers for the school year 2019-2020, almost 83% are women with a peak of over 99% in Kindergarten. Primary school is also in line with this trend, with teachers covering about 96% of the total. On the contrary, the gender gap partially decreases in the lower secondary school and above all in the second degree one, where male tenured teachers are 33.67% of the total. The data of the last school year confirm a constant trend of the last five years regarding tenured teachers for each school level.

Teaching is not a subject for young people The average age of the teaching staff is increasing. If regarding the 2019-2020 school year it turns out that 42% of permanent teachers are over 54 years old (percentage that in the South rises to 46.8%) and only 2.7% are under 34 years old (2 % in the South), by thoroughly analyzing the MIUR data regarding the age of permanent teachers and substitutes, the trends relating to the last 5 school years can be discovered. In particular, among tenured teachers there was a significant increase in the number of over 54s with + 8.73% at national level (excluding the autonomous provinces of Aosta, Bolzano and Trento). decreased by 6.44%. Much more significant is the increase in the age of substitute teachers. In particular, in the school year 2019-2020, the substitutes over 54 years of age increased by 191% compared to 2015-2016. Considering the same school years, substitute teachers under the age of 34 also increased in absolute value by 63%, but their incidence on the total decreased from 31.3% of the 2015-2016 school year to 27.6% of 2019-2020.

Precarious teachers: an unresolved question From the analysis of the data on school staff in state schools, with reference to the period 2017/2018 – 2019/2020, for each level of education, there is a constant decrease in the number of permanent teachers quantifiable in over 20 thousand units. At the same time we are witnessing a constant increase in the number of substitutes with an increase in the three school years considered of over 50 thousand units. With reference to the 2019/2020 school year, the percentage ratio of substitutes / permanent teachers can be quantified as over 20% at national level. Going into regional detail, this ratio is higher in the regions of Northern Italy, with a peak of 38.9% in Piedmont, followed by Tuscany (38.6%) and Lombardy (37.3%). In Campania, on the other hand, there is the lowest ratio: out of 100 teachers, only 12.1 are substitutes. It should be emphasized that the high number of substitute teachers and the low number of new permanent teachers is mainly due to the lack of funds which prevented the organization of ordinary competitions, leading to the lengthening of the rankings with new temporary workers who are added before the “old” are stabilized through competition.

In Emilia Romagna the school is multi-ethnic With reference to the data of the school year 2019-2020 relating to the state school. the region with the highest percentage of foreign students compared to the total number of students is Emilia Romagna: out of 492,909 students, 16.33% do not have Italian citizenship. In second place Lombardy with 16.27% of foreign students, in third place Tuscany (14%). The region with the lowest incidence of foreign students in state schools is Sardinia (2.63%). Apulia and Campania are also around 3%.

Girls prefer high school At the level of choice of educational path for secondary school, the MIUR data relating to public school in 2019-2020 indicate that 50% of students chose high school, 31% technical institutes , 18% vocational institutes, only 1% chose VET (Vocational Education and Training). The science and humanities subjects are more attractive to girls: in the school year 2019-2020, 774,220 girls chose the scientific or classical high school, against 484,486 boys. The data is reversed referring to the technical-practical studies. In fact, in technical institutes there are more than double the boys (figure for the 2019-2020 school year).

Tell me which address you choose and I will tell you who you are The data of the Miur relating to the professional institutes for the 2019-2020 school year indicate the absolute preferences at the level of different study fields and those relating to the total number of students per region. Nationally, in first place for the total number of students is Enogastronomy and Hotel Hospitality (76,147 students, 765 schools), followed by Enogastronomy – Triennium (57,979 students, 1,477 schools), Maintenance and Technical Assistance (48,516 students, 1,709 schools), Commercial Services (41,903 students, 1,435 schools), Social and Health Services (36,956 students, 1,140 schools). the highest are Emilia Romagna, Campania and Basilicata. Among these, in Emilia Romagna students prefer the Commercial Services professional course, while in Campania and Basilicata the Enogastronomy and Hospitality address. It should be noted that in Lombardy in first place among the five categories most chosen by students are the Social Health Services.

Catering and well-being, the most requested professional figures By crossing the data of the Miur with the data collected monthly by the Chambers of Commerce, exposed by the ANPAL, National Agency for Active Labor Policies, it is possible to obtain some employment trends in Italy, with reference to the month of December 2019. In particular, from these data it is possible to detect which are the most requested professional figures in relation to the level of education and qualifications. In this sense, the most requested professional figures from the world of work concern catering, followed by mechanical orientation and in third place the assistance and wellness sector. The choice of young people regarding the address of vocational institutes is also oriented on the possible job opportunities available. In fact, companies seek to a greater extent professional figures with professional qualifications and / or diplomas (29%), compared to university degrees (14%) or compulsory education (21%).

Pon: never so many projects approved and financed The Pon, the National Operational Program of the Miur aims to create a high quality, effective and fair education and training system by offering schools the possibility of accessing additional EU funds to those already established by government decrees. Taking into consideration the data of the school years from 2014-2015 to 2019-2020 it turns out that 85% of the applications have been authorized, while 13% have been evaluated or considered valid, but with the requested amount not yet approved. From this it appears that only the remaining 2% of the applications were found to be inadmissible or non-compliant. The largest number of requests for Pon loans come from the South and the Islands, respectively with 38.8 and 15.6% of the total. Specifically Campania, Sicily and Puglia are the three regions where schools have had the highest percentage of authorizations with respect to the requests presented. The highest amounts of funding authorized in the period considered went to schools in the South (46% of the total) with a significant peak in the 2016-2017 school year. In detail, the regions that have had the highest Pon grants are Campania (364 million euros), Sicily (274 million), Puglia (220 million). The four main areas of action relating to the various requests made by the Italian institutes concern: integration and strengthening projects of the basic disciplinary areas; infrastructural interventions for technological innovation; actions for the development of transversal skills; support for students with frailty.