School, the students: ‘We are 100 thousand’ – Chronicle

Processions in Rome, Palermo, Genoa, Verona and in the main cities of Italy. Presidia, sit-ins and assemblies in the square in others 30 cities across the country for school reform and against the Meloni government. According to High School Students Network and the Union of University Students, who organize today’s mobilization, despite the rain in most of Italy, the students who took to the streets are 100mila. “It is always good for students to express their ideas and put forward their own proposals, it is one of the fundamental elements of free societies” declared the Minister of Education and merit Joseph Vallettaraat the center of the protesters’ controversies.

Today in Rome a delegation from the Ministry of Education and Merit spoke with some representatives of the young people in the procession. “The delegation declared its willingness to listen to and collect the requests of the student associations and report them to the minister, in view of the dialogue he announced in the institutional offices. IDialogue was the cardinal principle su which I immediately set my action. I confirm that, in the ‘Grand Alliance for Schools and for Merit’ that we are building, confrontation with girls and boys plays a fundamental role and I will be happy to deepen the dialogue as soon as possible in the institutional bodies responsible with the democratically elected representatives of students,” added the minister.

Protest

“No credit to this government” however wrote the young a Genoa, Palermo and Verona. The squares were also very popular in Varese, Vicenza, Perugia, Mantua, Pisa, Cagliari, Imperia, Forlì. Other principals and assemblies are scheduled for this afternoon in the Marches, Basilicata and Bologna. “We are ready to defend the right to study and every right conquered up to now – explained Rete Studenti and Udu – The forces that make up the Government are anti-student. Valditara is responsible for Gelmini reform which helped destroy the public school and university. We questioned the candidates of the parties supporting the government during the elections and none supported the student proposals. ” We want investments in the right to study, not reflections on a merit that does not exist. There can be no merit in a school that does not give everyone the same tools and the same possibilities. We want environmental justice, stable and paid work, mental health.”

Also CGIL expressed his closeness to the mobilizations: “it is a priority that in the coming weeks, with the budget law, and in the coming months, with the implementation of the provisions of the Pnrr, the strategic choices to strengthen the education system and It will be necessary – continued the trade union of Corso d’Italia – to invest and intervene aimed above all at increasing school time (full and extended), extending compulsory schooling to 18 years, radically reviewing the relationship between education and work, guaranteeing throughout the country the development of the national university system by overcoming the current competitive logic between universities and supporting free access to higher education and the right to study also with the drastic reduction of university fees, guaranteeing the development of the public research system, recognizing the continuing education and lifelong learning as a subjective and universal right, against any hypotheses i of regional differentiation”.

The requests

Young people strongly claim i 5 pillars of the school. “We cannot accept a school based on merit, competition, homeland and family as Minister Valditara intends, we are against this government as we were against the previous ones”, they say.

“Last year, starting from the assemblies in schools and cities throughout the country, we arrived at the States General of the school where we defined together with students from all over the country and the social realities the school model we want – he declares Alice Beccari, from the UDS Student Union – tomorrow we take to the streets claiming 5 pillars of the school: a national law on the right to study, the replacement of PCTOs with integrated education, health and safety for safe and educational construction and for the guarantee of psychological well-being, greater student representation and the reform of the statute so that greater rights are guaranteed”.

“We are also taking to the streets against this government as we have been taking to the streets for years with all governments – continues Beccari – we have a concrete and real proposal reform of the school system and we demand not only to be heard as this government promises us it will do, we want to see the requests of students from all over the country approved and carried forward, we want to decide because the future belongs to us”.

The news from Rome