Giorgia Meloni’s government has proposed a 30 per cent cap on the number of migrant children in Italian classrooms.
The proposal has been put forward by Giuseppe Valditara, the education minister, who also wants to ban the wearing of burkas by schoolgirls.
The conservative coalition also wants compulsory Italian language classes for the parents of migrant children as part of the plans to encourage integration and avoid cultural ghettoes.
Parents who fail to send their children to school could also be prosecuted and jailed for up to two years.
“It is fundamental that there should not be a high percentage of foreign children in a classroom because it means they will find it harder to learn the Italian language and the values of our community,” the minister said.
“I will propose making Italian language learning mandatory for parents whose children aren’t doing well at school.”
It is not clear how the new rule, if adopted, would be enforced.
Giuseppe Valditara’s proposals will be discussed at an education conference in autumn – TIZIANA FABI/AFP via Getty Images
Migrant children from families where Italian was barely spoken risk losing much of what they have learned in school, he said.
“The fact that a parent should know our language and interact with teachers is fundamental; there are too many parents of foreign children who don’t show up at school, even though this is important.”
He said the rate of absenteeism among migrant children is 26 per cent, compared to 6 per cent for Italian children.
The proposals will be discussed at a conference in autumn, which will bring together teachers, unions, student councils and politicians, Mr Valditara said.
Italy “welcomes” migrants, he said, but they need to understand the country’s “identity and values”.
Italy’s demographics have changed in the last few decades as a result of immigration, from a largely white, native-born population to a multicultural society similar to France or the UK.
There are now 930,000 non-Italian children in the nation’s schools, representing nearly 12 per cent of the total. That is up from 3.5 per cent two decades ago.
In some schools the proportion is much greater, especially in the north, where a relatively thriving economy tends to attract more migrant families.
Around 43 per cent of migrant children are from Europe – predominantly Romania, Albania, Ukraine and Moldova. Around 32 per cent are from African countries, mostly Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, Nigeria and Senegal.
A fifth are from Asia – predominantly Bangladesh, China, India, the Philippines and Pakistan. Just over 8 per cent are from Latin America – mostly Ecuador and Peru.
Union calls proposal ‘myopic’
Imprisoning parents who do not send their children to school was criticised as “myopic” by FLC-CGIL, a teachers’ union.
“Making the teaching of Italian obligatory for the parents of migrant children is not integration; it is a punishment imposed by decree, which risks producing exactly the opposite effect. Making it obligatory won’t draw families closer to schools, it will just criminalise them,” the union said.
Critics say the government is taking increasingly hardline stances on issues such as migration and identity in an attempt to outflank a new hard-Right party that was founded earlier this year by Roberto Vannacci, a former special forces commander in the Italian army.
National Future, Mr Vannacci’s party, commands more than 7 per cent of the national vote, according to polls. It has eclipsed the popularity of The League, one of three parties in the governing coalition.
Mr Vannacci, who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, unveiled more details of his party’s manifesto this week, calling for troops to be deployed to the streets of Italian towns and cities to maintain security and the teaching of military values in schools.
He wants a ban on puberty blockers and gender reassignment for teenagers and diminished abortion access.
Civil unions between gay couples would be banned and his party would pursue the highly controversial policy of remigration – sending migrants back to their home countries.
Alessandro Zan, an MP from the centre-Left opposition Democratic Party, said the manifesto “verges on Nazism”.