The strategy for Italy's digital revolution is there, the decrees will follow. Instead, I postpone for school even if "the recruitment of teachers will not slip". This is in summary the result of yesterday evening's Council of Ministers.
ULTRA WIDE BAND
The Renzi government yesterday approved two political documents which establish the strategic lines of the digital revolution that the premier wants to start in Italy. It is a 12 billion euro plan over seven years, of which 6 taken from the state budget and the rest from the Juncker plan and from European funds, which aims to overcome the European digital agenda by providing the country with anetwork infrastructure that brings the fiber as close as possible to Italian homes and speeds up the Internet connection.
A forthcoming meeting will approve the decrees which will make the plan operational and establish its modalities. But it will be “the operators who will choose the most efficient technology”. And on that occasion the discussion on the future of the network and on the possibility of a State-private convergence will also be reopened, as Vodafone CEO Aldo Bisio explicitly proposed just yesterday. It is possible that the CDP has a leading role, but without dirigisme or statism.
REFERRAL FOR SCHOOL
It was instead postponed of a week the school reform bill, even if Prime Minister Matteo Renzi immediately made it clear that there will be no postponements for the extraordinary hiring of teachers, from 100 to 150, in view of the next school year with the consequent elimination of precariousness.
The bill also provides for a remuneration system for teachers more linked to merit and the evaluation of their work than to seniority increases. For the peer schools it is intended to use the 5 per thousand in addition to adequate tax breaks.
The news of the day had not spared a few twists and turns despite the fact that sketchbooks and drafts of the decree law were already circulating among the insiders. Having abandoned the path of emergency decree, the examination of the bill was also split into two moments - guidelines today and dismissal of the definitive text in seven days - before reaching Parliament.
Parliament from which, however, the Prime Minister states, with the usual coloring of his lexicon, that he expects it "to be able to legislate in a period of time sufficient for a close and serene discussion of all issues, but not a biblical one". The ball is so thrown to Parliament that now it will have to take responsibility for him. It is necessary that therole entry of those who are in the so-called running out of rankings not be hindered. Nor can the alibi of the lack of economic coverage be invoked "because – Renzi said – there is money: one billion immediately which will become three in 2016".
But if the stabilization of the precarious constitutes a nodal point for the future of the school, also the other aspects that act strategically for its real improvement and are the cornerstones of the reform that it was then the turn of the Minister of Education Stefania Giannini to present. "We have a very precise objective which is to give real implementation to a concept that has been frozen for 15 years, that of school autonomy", said Giannini, adding that "to change the school, we need to start from an educational project, enhancing innovation and school-work alternation”.
A decisive role must be assigned above all to the reform of the career of teachers. "We are moving to an innovative and revolutionary teacher evaluation system for the country which so far has seen career progression linked only to seniority", said Minister Giannini, confirming that 70% of the steps will be linked to merit. In the bill will also end the kindergarten reform, with a single cycle 0-6 years.
Finally, the Minister wanted to mention the issue that emerged in the last few hours of the discounts for private schools, a theme certainly not destined to remain in the background. “There are some fiscal measures, on which we have to make a decision, which are very interesting and innovative – he said -. In particular, the deduction for the families of pupils of private schools".
