Summer Plan, another 150 million coming

"Dear Parents, by my decree of 11 April 2024, 400 million has been allocated to finance recreational, skill-building, and social activities for the period of summer suspension of lessons (so-called 'Summer Plan'), for the school years 2023-2024 and 2024-2025." This was written in a letter by the Minister of Education and Merit, Giuseppe Valditara.

"These are important resources," Valditara continued, "to offer valuable opportunities to students in the conviction that it is fundamental to make the school a place of aggregation, especially for children and young people who, in the summer, lose a fundamental point of reference and cannot count on other experiences of personal enrichment and growth due to their parents' work requirements or particular family situations.

Therefore, within the organisational autonomy of the educational institutions, all schools will be able to use, also for this school year 2024-2025 and, therefore, for the next summer period within the two-year planning of the allocated funds, the residual resources to activate sports, musical, theatrical, recreational, educational enhancement projects, to enhance the talents of young people and, more generally, all those initiatives that foster relationality, aggregation, inclusion, sociality, welcoming and group life.

Moreover, Valditara announced, 'precisely to ensure the maximum participation of educational institutions, I have signed a new decree with an additional EUR 150 million for the participation of schools that did not participate in the previous call for proposals or that want to enhance the activities already planned in the summer, through projects to promote concrete experiences for students, fostering their personal, cultural and professional growth'.

As usual, schools will be able to further enrich the offer of the Summer Plan, individually or in a network among themselves, thanks to alliances between the school and the territory, local authorities, local communities, universities, research centres, sports associations, voluntary and third sector organisations and centres, as well as through the active involvement of families and their associations and also university students for mentoring and tutoring activities.