FdI proposal, bonus of up to 1,500 euro per student in parish schools. And Valditara opens up

From 2025, families with an Isee income of up to 40,000 euro will be granted a voucher, 'expendable exclusively at a parish school', for a maximum annual amount of 1,500 euro for each student attending. The total funding set is a maximum of EUR 65 million per year. This is the provision of an amendment signed by FdI deputy Lorenzo Malagola to the manoeuvre. A decree of the Ministry of Education will be needed to implement the measure.

The Education Minister opens. "The government is well aware of the importance of ensuring the right of children, regardless of their income, to study in parochial schools," says Giuseppe Valditara about the Fdl amendment. "We are reflecting on this important issue and are already working to identify workable solutions," the minister assures Ansa

Hard on the other hand is the position of the M5s, which speaks of a shock proposal. "We thought that with the cuts to public schools and school staff positions in this manoeuvre we had already hit rock bottom, but with the majority's amendments we are starting to dig in. Fratelli d'Italia has put in black and white the shock proposal to give a voucher of up to EUR 1,500 per year exclusively to those enrolled in public schools. The message they are giving is all too clear: on the one hand, with Valditara's measures and proposals like these they are sinking the public school, and on the other they are subsidising private schools both directly and indirectly by encouraging families to enrol their children there in order to get the voucher. A measure that traces our educational dowry, but distorts its meaning because it increases inequality by discriminating in a senseless manner against families who choose public schools. At this point we ask ourselves: but what has the public school done to Giorgia Meloni to be so mistreated? Why does Fratelli d'Italia find public schools so disgusting?". Thus in a note the M5S exponents in the culture committee at the Chamber Antonio Caso, Anna Laura Orrico and Gaetano Amato.

Nicola Fratoianni of Avs is also very critical: "The FdI amendment clearly violates the Constitution, which makes it clear in Article 33 that public schools must not be a burden on the state. They want to give 65 million euros to private schools, just as they cut resources to more than five thousand teachers in public schools, not caring about precariousness, henhouse classes, and full-time education, which does not exist in half the country," says the leader of the Italian Left. And he adds: 'They reject our amendments every year for free books, the cost of which can weigh up to 600 euros per child, and then propose to give 1,500 euros to those who enrol their children in private schools: they are champions of injustice and have the backing of a minister who already made a fool of himself in September by stating that public schools 'are public' and who today continues to defend 'the right to attend state schools' instead of the 'universal right to study'. If this amendment is approved it would be a disgrace,' Fratoianni concludes, 'against which we will do everything, even going as far as the Constitutional Court. The difference between us and this right-wing is all here: we want free education for all, they feed the private sector and cut the public school'.