Share

School: France decides on "electroshock" with more severity, failures and meritocracy. When will Italy wake up?

Faced with the worsening of its school system, Macron's France has decided on a very courageous change based on the rigor of studies and meritocracy. Exactly what Italy would also need but which is not even on the agenda here due to the mediocrity of the ruling political class

School: France decides on "electroshock" with more severity, failures and meritocracy. When will Italy wake up?

Faced with the disastrous data of OECD-Pisa report, the French took the bull by the horns and decided on a radical reform of its educational system in public middle schools: an end to laxity and false egalitarianism, failures when necessary, more severity, more meritocracy and greater valorization of excellence. This is what the courageous reform of the young Minister of Education foresees, Gabriel Attal, an emerging Macronian who could be the candidate of the reformist and pro-European Center in future presidential elections. Attal's meritocratic philosophy is very clear and among the measures envisaged by the reform there is also the one - which is actually the most controversial - of dividing the classes into three groups depending on the level of preparation of the students. Attal takes the controversies into account but is determined to dismantle post-23 egalitarianism and to restart the social lift of society from school, enhancing rigor in studies and excellence. Everything is ok as long as we don't forget the importance of guaranteeing equal starting conditions, at least educational, for all students. “The objective of the reform – explains the thirty-year-old French minister – is not to mortify but to encourage people to study and improve”. The results of the latest OECD-Pisa Report are moreover merciless towards the French school system, given that in mathematics the skills of students from beyond the Alps are in 27rd place among OECD countries (Italy is in 26th), in reading comprehension at 17th even behind Italy (which is in 24th place) and in science at 31th with Italy in XNUMXst. The results should also push theItalian to do the same and to restore centrality to school reform, which cannot be limited to the simple arrangement of temporary teachers, often hired without competition, but should imagine new contents, new programmes, a new organization of teaching. It would be enough to think that every year in Italy in the final exams the percentages of promotion are close to 100% to realize that there is something that doesn't work in the Italian school and that its laxity and its leveling end up penalizing the children of the less wealthy families who no longer find in school the social lift that France rightly wants to revive. But we need a Minister of Education with clear ideas like Attal's and with the determination to carry them forward. The surreal story of the Tanning Commission on relationship education in schools unfortunately does not seem to warrant optimism. Instead, applause goes to the Minister of Macron.

comments