Lucia Azzolina (Ansa)

  • Distance learning, Azzolina: school year will be valid, 85 million coming
  • Azzolina: we will go towards an extension of the closure of the schools

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March 26, 2020 "A highly significant measure is that which establishes the conservation of the validity of the school year 2019-2020 . Article 32 of decree-law no. 9 states:" If the educational institutions of the national education system cannot carry out at least 200 days of lessons, following the COVID-19 containment measures, the school year 2019-2020 still retains validity also as an exception to the provisions of article 74 of the legislative decree of 16 April 1994, n. 297 ". Education Minister Lucia Azzolina reiterated this during a report in the Senate. Azzolina recalled that 8.3 million children are unable to access school buildings.

In the Law Decree n. 18/2020 resources were identified , equal to 85 million Euros , for the year 2020, allocating: 10 million for the endowment or enhancement - for schools - of digital platforms and tools for distance learning; 70 million euros to make available to the less well-off students, on loan for use, individual digital devices for the use of the learning platforms and to guarantee connectivity you will say in the territories where it is lacking or missing; we have repeated it several times and I repeat it: no student must be left behind because of the digital divide, that is, of the infrastructural differences of the network between the territories: 5 million for the training of school staff on methodologies and techniques for distance learning.

"I want to clearly reiterate a fundamental aspect. We will return to school if and when, on the basis of what has been established by the health authorities, the conditions allow it."

"The education service is an essential public service constitutionally guaranteed. For this reason, we immediately urged the activation of forms of distance learning. With the aim of guaranteeing the right to study, but also and above all the closeness to our students and to their families. It is an obligatory choice in my opinion. We have no alternative if we want to be close to our students ".

"I hold on tightly to the whole country, to those who have suffered these losses and, in particular, to the communities, the citizens of Lombardy, Veneto, Emilia-Romagna, the regions most affected. I want to thank the school communities of these areas that, despite their despair over the losses they suffered, have continued to react. There the school not only did not stop, but was able to support its students also from an emotional point of view. The boys will be proud of you and will remember all of this". So Azzolina always in the information to the Senate on the initiatives concerning the continuation of the school year.

"In order to deal with the health emergency, thanks to the Ministerial Task Force for educational emergencies, special assistance interventions have been activated which are carried out in the daily relationship with all schools and families through concrete actions, among which it seems important to mention psychological support actions, aimed at students, teachers and families, to overcome the difficulties that occurred with the emergence of the emergency ".

Despite the period of serious difficulty in the management of the emergency, 93% of Italian schools answered the question with which the monitoring took place; 67% of the schools that have activated remote activity provide specific forms of evaluation for it. Currently more than 6.7 million pupils are reached, through different means, by distance learning activities.