From recruitment to retirement: teachers’ entire careers in a single online platform

In a country where almost 15 per cent of teachers were in another profession before taking up a teaching post, as the OECD reminded us last week, or where only 4.8 per cent of teachers are under 30, compared with 54.3 per cent who are over 50, as Eurostat highlighted just two days ago, there is also a problem with the attractiveness of the teaching profession. This issue cannot be resolved solely through the pay rises resulting from the three contract renewals promoted by the Minister for Education and Merit, Giuseppe Valditara, but also requires the creation of an online platform to guide young people. This is the aim of the new digital platform funded by the latest Schools Decree, which has just been referred to the Senate committee (with the deadline for amendments set for 20 October) and is due to be debated in the Senate on 3 November.

The platform will also be responsible for supporting school staff throughout their careers, right up to retirement.

To this end, Decree-Law 170/2026 provides for a two-year programme to develop new digital services within the Education Information System (Sidi), which will receive €14 million over the two-year period 2026–2027: one million for 2026 and 13 million for 2027.

The platform for the more than 1.2 million employees of the Ministry of Education, of whom over 850,000 are teachers, forms part of an initiative already underway and represents the evolution of the Digital Staff File for school staff, which will be operational from 2025. Already today, school staff can directly access a significant portion of the information concerning them: their employment status, qualifications obtained, service records throughout their career – whether on fixed-term or permanent contracts – and other details relating to their professional status.

A new web platform will be built on top of this tool, with its launch scheduled for early 2027. The aim is to create a digital hub for those already working within the system and for those who might choose to join it: a space in which to raise awareness of career paths, opportunities for growth, training and skills development and, more generally, the value of the various professional roles within educational institutions.