The Vannacci effect on the government. Valditara: “30 per cent cap on foreign pupils in classes”

The continued growth of Vannacci and his ‘Futuro Nazionale’ party is not merely a topic confined to the polls; it is also having an impact on certain government initiatives, and schools are no exception. “All research shows that when there is a very high number of foreign pupils in a class who are not familiar with the culture and language of the host country, integration is more difficult and academic results are poorer. And Italian pupils also see a decline in their performance.” So said Giuseppe Valditara, Minister for Education and Merit, during an interview with the daily newspaper La Verità, emphasising that “we are working on a circular that reaffirms, reinforces and makes more effective the existing directive setting a 30 per cent limit on the number of foreign pupils in a class, particularly with regard to language skills”. The circular referred to by the minister is expected to set out how “local education authorities will coordinate efforts to distribute foreign pupils across different classes and local schools in order to try to avoid excessive concentration. And it is clear that local authorities also need to implement housing policies to prevent the formation of ghettoised neighbourhoods; after all, it goes without saying that we cannot send a pupil to school several kilometres away,” explained Valditara.

In the interview, the minister also responded to the proposal to withdraw residence permits from foreign nationals who do not send their children to school: “This is another issue we are considering; it is a continuation of what we had already provided for in the Caivano decree when we decided to penalise parents who do not send their children to school. This penalty has led to a sharp drop in school drop-out rates in certain areas of the country.” This concern, however, is not without reason. For several weeks now, Vannacci has been ahead of the Lega in the polls and, according to the latest SWG survey, stands at 7.2 per cent, just 0.2 percentage points behind Forza Italia, the second-largest party in the governing coalition. The government’s response to this right-wing opposition has therefore shifted towards a greater focus on identity-related issues – the very strengths of the National Front (FN), which has even gone so far as to propose separate classes for foreign pupils.

It is true that the number of children without Italian citizenship has risen by 10 per cent over the last five years, reaching a total of 911,578 in the 2024/25 school year, according to data from the Single School Portal. But it is equally true that this percentage increase is also due to the demographic crisis, which has led to an 8.3 per cent decrease in the number of Italian pupils between 2020 and 2025 (-612,000), bringing the native student population to a low of 6,788,990. Therefore, based on the figures cited by the Ministry of Education itself, foreign pupils in Italian classrooms account for only 12 per cent of the total enrolment. Admittedly, this figure is a national average and may not reflect the specific circumstances of individual classrooms across the peninsula – indeed, in the north, the proportion of non-Italian pupils exceeds 17 per cent, in central Italy the figure stands at 13 per cent, whilst in the south and on the islands it is 4.6 per cent – but the fact remains that fears of classes with a ‘very high number of foreign pupils’ are largely unfounded. This is also because some of those considered foreign pupils may obtain Italian citizenship upon reaching the age of majority.

But this is not the first time the Minister for Education has spoken about the presence of foreign pupils in schools across the peninsula and the concept of ‘Italianness’. Two weeks ago, during Question Time in the Chamber of Deputies, when pressed by Fn MP Rossano Sasso for an explanation regarding the punishment meted out to two pupils at a secondary school in Cesena who, on the last day of term, had displayed a banner reading ‘Italy for Italians’, he replied: “I wish to make it clear straight away that not only is there nothing objectionable about this statement, but it is certainly one with which one can agree, as it encompasses all the citizens of our country. It is, moreover, a phrase that has been repeated on numerous occasions by the political movements that make up the current government.”