School, Higher Council for Public Education: better distance learning and no grades in primary school

ROME – The opinion that Minister Lucia Azzolina did not want, that of the Higher Education Council – 36 members, including school administrators, teachers, trade unionists, experts from public institutions – asks Education to eliminate, for this year, the votes for students from and replace them with judgments that they can better interpret in the middle of this school year. Therefore, it strongly recommends high school exams with a “strict, detailed and prescriptive national security protocol to ensure the health of all staff involved”, otherwise it is better to trust, as was done with the exam third grade, for a remote interview.

The opinion of the CSPI is mandatory but not binding. With an order in Covid’s time, the Minister of Education had cut it to speed up the times of year-end decisions, concentrated on the three ordinances (draft ordinances, for now) signed last week. The matter comes to the end of a video meeting on the river that started yesterday at 10 a.m., ended for the assembly after twelve hours, and continued in a restricted session until midnight.

In primary school, “taking into account that the emergency situation has particularly penalized the learning of the youngest students, for whom the interaction in the presence with the teachers constitutes a determining element in the learning processes, to a greater extent than the others school grades “, the Higher Council of Education requested that the final evaluation be expressed through an informed judgment in the document provided and not through the vote expressed in tenths.

In addition, the CSPI expressed doubts about the constitutional legitimacy of the measure that provides for the replacement of the final third-year state exam with the class council report cards. Critical members, as already highlighted by Republic, in the time allowed between the online discussion of the thesis and, in fact, the final evaluation: “We suggest more relaxed times, leaving the task of organizing the calendar to the schools.” The minister had already informed the National Association of directors that these long times will be granted.

The Council expressed its opinion on the September school resumption: “In view of the 2020 / ’21 school year”, we read, “it will be necessary to intervene quickly with regulatory measures that reduce the minimum number of students of each educational institution of size and the number minimum number of students per class and, consequently, determine the increase in the workforce of all school personnel, managers, teachers, administrators. “

For now there are no specific dates on the recovery of the year in September or on the courses for the recovery of insufficient disciplines (initially we spoke of September 1). In the absence of a school calendar yet to be launched, “it is not appropriate to give prescriptive indications to schools on the start of educational activities and on how to recover learning. This provision,” concludes the CSPI, “is detrimental to the autonomy of the schools and the prerogatives of teaching staff. “

The final hope of the Higher Education Council, which recalls having produced these opinions in a week instead of the 45 days previously provided, is that the ministry “will be able to capture and appreciate the suggestions proposed in its role as the highest institutional and representative body. the school community. “