More than one million students give up their religious instruction at school

More and more students are renouncing their religious instruction at school: in the 2023-24 school year a record 1.164 million students opted to do something else, an increase of 68,000 compared to the previous survey, when students opting for alternative teachings were 15.5% of the total. Today the percentage is 16.2%, and in some cities - such as Florence, Bologna and Aosta - it registers further peaks, in some cases covering half the pupils. A survey by the Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics, summarised in its main passages by the Skuola.net portal, reveals a cross-section of a student body divided between North and South, as regards the use of the Catholic religion class at school.
Southern Italy seems to maintain a more "traditional" approach to religion in schools: in cities like Taranto, Benevento and Barletta, the percentages of students who refuse to participate in religion class are less than 3%. Florence, on the contrary, is the most 'secular' city in Italy. Here, more than half - 51.5% - of the students do not participate in classroom activities. They are followed, not by much, by Bologna (47.29%), Aosta (43.58%) and Biella (40.62%), with numbers well above the national average.