Italy decided on Tuesday January 5 to delay the reopening of high schools, as part of the renewal of anti-Covid restrictions, just as an NGO is concerned that thousands of students have dropped out of school after months of 'distance learning.
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The face-to-face return to high school will only take place on January 11 and not on January 7 as initially planned.
Younger students will return to school on the 7th, but only for 50% of their lessons, according to a decree adopted by the Council of Ministers on the night of Monday to Tuesday.
Ahead of this decision at the national level, several regions had already decided to postpone the start of the school year until the end of January.
Italian students had only a few months of face-to-face lessons in 2020 because of the confinement imposed in the spring and new restrictions adopted in the fall to deal with the second wave of the coronavirus.
Italy, the first European country seriously affected by the pandemic, has recorded more than 75,000 deaths.
The NGO Save the Children warned in a statement Tuesday against the impact of this situation on adolescents.
According to a study she conducted, 28% of students say they have at least one classmate who has stopped attending classes, which would translate into tens of thousands of school dropouts.
According to this survey of 1,000 teenagers aged 14 to 18, the main reasons for these dropouts are difficulty in connecting online and lack of concentration.
37% of the students surveyed believe that their ability to study has been negatively affected.
According to the NGO, most students do not have the equipment or workspace to work effectively from home.
"
We are faced with the risk that long absences from school will turn into permanent dropout and that many adolescents, in a context of serious economic crisis, end up swelling the ranks of exploited workers
," said the director of the NGO for Italy and Europe, Raffaela Milano, quoted by the press release.
In its new decree, the government also extended the ban on movement between the different regions until January 15 and confirmed that bars and restaurants will remain closed on the weekend of January 9 and 10.
The whole peninsula has been classified in a “
red
”
zone
with a high risk of contagion during the end of year celebrations, which end in Italy on January 6 on the occasion of the feast of Epiphany, a public holiday in Italy. .
