September 25, 2026<\/a><\/p>\nItaly is a frontline country for migration and integration is a hot campaign issue ahead of next year\u2019s general election.<\/p>\n
Save the Children warned forcing children to change schools or enrol in a different institution from their peers simply because of their nationality or limited proficiency in Italian would \u201ccreate \u2018first-class\u2019 and \u2018second-class\u2019 students\u201d.<\/p>\n
But Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara said \u201cinadequate language proficiency\u2026 hinders educational progress\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cParental participation in their child\u2019s educational path is fundamental for academic success\u201d, he told journalists.<\/p>\n
Valditara said there were 34,000 school classes in Italy in which over 30% of the students are foreign.<\/p>\n
But most of those would not be affected by the new law, which targets new arrivals rather than those born in Italy or who attended kindergarten.<\/p>\n
The 30% limit on the number of foreign students per class was established in a ministerial memorandum in 2010.<\/p>\n
But the limit was flexible, and could be raised in cases involving foreign students with adequate language skills, such as foreign students born in Italy, or lowered when foreign students have a poor command of Italian.<\/p>\n
Opposition leader Elly Schlein accused the government of \u201ca new witch hunt at the expense of children\u201d.<\/p>\n
The burqa ban was \u201ca matter of security\u201d, Meloni said in a television interview after the cabinet meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen a woman \u2014 or worse, a young girl \u2014 is forced to cover her face, she is being denied fundamental rights and the very integration that is so often loudly championed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
A crackdown on the use of burqas in schools was called for in July by the National Future (FN) party.<\/p>\n
The FN, which is not part of the governing coalition, is further to the right than Meloni\u2019s and has emerged as a major challenger, rising sharply in the polls since launching in February.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER Giorgia Meloni\u2019s cabinet adopted a decree law Thursday banning burqas and niqabs in schools and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":635520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[269940,835,18425,42,41745,102,6830,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-635519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-burqa-ban","tag-education","tag-giorgia-meloni","tag-headlines","tag-integration","tag-italy","tag-migration","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/635520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}