In 2021, in Calabria, the school dropout rate stood at 14%, higher than the national average; NEETs stand at 39.9%. Nursery schools are one of the central issues in terms of children’s rights: compared to a national coverage of 27% and the EU threshold of 33%, Calabria has only 11.9%.
A worrying picture that has a profound impact on the social fabric and the future of this area. It is in this context that a bill was born on the initiative of the Regional Council which aims to establish an integrated education and training system from birth to six years. For Calabria it potentially represents a historic turning point and the opportunity to restore to Calabrian children the rights that have been denied up to now.
As illustrated in the introductory report that preceded the bill, since their birth in the 1970s, nursery schools have spread in an unbalanced manner across the national territory. After about 50 years the situation has not improved, on the contrary the gap in services between the regions has increased. The epochal reform of the Italian education system was marked by the Legislative Decree of 13 April 2017 nr. 65, which provided for the establishment of the integrated education system from birth to six years. The new element was that the educational services for children aged 0-3 years effectively moved away from the welfare logic provided by local authorities up to that point to enter a real educational and state dimension under the Ministry of Education. , through the connection with nursery schools (3-6 years). Thus was born the Integrated Education and Instruction System 0-6 and the multi-year national plan; a system which, however, has never been implemented in Calabria due to the legislation being too old and never updated.
The legislative project of the Calabria Region, in fact, had been at a standstill for 11 years and “this has led to the impossibility of accessing the resources envisaged by the national regulatory framework of 2017”. This was explained by Giusi Princi, vice-president of the Regional Council with responsibility for Education and newly elected to the European Parliament, as well as promoter of the bill which aims “for the first time to combat educational poverty linked to childhood”. The starting point was the adaptation of regional regulations.
The bill was developed taking into account a contextual analysis. From the research carried out it emerged that the school population aged 0-2 years and 3-5 years represents 2.2% and 2.5% of the resident population. According to what was found by Istat in the 2022 report “Nursery and educational services for children between 0 and 6 years: an overall picture”, economically disadvantaged families tend to enroll their children less frequently in childcare services. Only 54 municipalities out of 404 have a per capita income higher than the regional average. In 2022, 309 childcare services were active in Calabria with a total availability of 5,838 places authorized for operation. Overall, the municipalities in which there are active services are 118, equal to 29.2% of the Calabrian municipalities, while the municipalities without them are 286, or 70.8%.
The objective of the bill, which the Regional Council approved unanimously, is therefore to «define the integrated system to achieve the continuity of the educational path 0-6, through the strengthening of nursery, micro nursery, spring sections , supplementary services for children”. In other words, it is a question of expanding and consolidating the offer of the number of places, providing free admission for less well-off families, «for the progressive achievement of coverage of 33% of the population in the 0-3 year age group, so as to reduce the existing gap with other regions, through the redefinition of structural and organizational requirements”.
The technical table is already operational for the drafting of the specific regulation which will govern the contents and implementation paths and which will be approved by the regional council. A fundamental step to ensure «that this law, important for Calabria, does not remain a manifesto». To underline it is Francesco Mollace, coordinator of the education, school and educational poverty consultancy of the Third Sector Forum of Calabria, which confirms that the proposal could actually mark a real change of pace for the territory. «The 0-6 approach differs from the 0-3 approach adopted in the past because it accompanies children right into the education system through an integrated approach, without the risk of creating a gap in their education. In a complex area like the Calabrian one this becomes a fundamental point for everyone’s future.”
Educational poverty, highlights Mollace, is «a vicious circle. We need to take care of the kids right away to prevent them from ending up in bad environments. In some specific areas, for example, many are children of prisoners, so taking care of them also means supporting families and ensuring that family tensions are not unloaded on minors.” According to the 2023 Invalsi Report, the greatest drop in implicit school dropout was recorded in Calabria, i.e. that of students who finish their school studies without possessing the necessary basic skills. Furthermore, half of young people who finish high school are not able to understand what they read: «This implies the absence of critical thinking and consequently the difficulty of discernment. The entire community pays the price». The Pnrr could have represented the best opportunity to change approach «and instead there was a lack of places for co-planning, the involvement of other cultural environments or the third sector. We intervened by giving schools additional funding, as if to say: we opened the taps and we are wasting water.”
At present, as communicated by the Regional Council, 15 million euros have been co-financed to access the overall ministerial allocation, equal to 80 million euros, to be allocated to the activation of nursery schools, spring sections and early childhood education centers . In particular, 22 million have been provided for the implementation of spring sections in internal areas and for vouchers to be allocated to less well-off families to make free use of nursery schools. «Our children have been deprived of their rights for too long, now it is necessary to change pace» comments Princi. «Contrary to what happened at their birth, in which nursery schools were considered welfare havens, today we know how much the psycho-educational intervention in the first months and years of children affects their development. Not only that, because by doing so we will also help women to reconcile their working and professional lives: by curbing educational poverty we will also support equal opportunities.”
