Resistance to being a tutor, principals 'we struggle to find them'

(ANSA) - ROME, MAY 23 - A few days before the new deadline set by the central administration, it emerges that in many schools it is difficult to find the new figures of the tutor teacher and the guidance teacher. The overall response, in short, would be - from the first rumors - limited, with the managers forced to do work of convincing teachers to take on the new three-year assignment introduced with funding from the PNRR.
"In fact, in many institutes they are finding difficulties to find the figures of tutors and counselors - says to ANSA Mario Rusconi, president of the Association of principals of Rome - I do not think it is a question of compensation but rather There is contrary pressure from the traditional trade unions. For us diAnp, on the other hand, these are very useful figures that foreshadow school management, which exists throughout Europe and does not exist here, except at the 'artisanal' level. With the tutor and the counsellor, we have a first form of school management that annoys traditional unions also because of the salary diversification that follows".
For the Anief union it is not a surprise what is happening: "We had foreseen that it would end up like this - says Marcello Pacifico, national president of Anief - , because to support students in the choice of training courses, with full awareness and to prevent them from leaving the courses of study, it was necessary to review the ministerial decree 63, integrating the initiative with specialists, but also integrating the staff of teachers and Ata going to confirm the 40 thousand of the last year. Certainly a teacher for 40-50 students in the three-year high school period cannot be enough to prevent those most in difficulty from being recovered. Even the data coming from the universities are clear: dropouts are growing and the president of the Crui reminds us that too many young graduates are wrong faculties".
Cristina Costarelli, headmaster of the Newton scientific high school in Rome and president of ANP Lazio, also says that she has found colleagues willing to fill the two roles but that the response was not immediate. "The novelty was not proposed at a favorable time of the school year - reasoned Costarelli with ANSA - but in a period already full of institutional and scholastic commitments while it is expected immediately, of course, the availability for training. Then there was a need for preventive ministerial accompaniment. I would also add that there is still an incomplete clarity of the activities that these figures will have to carry out: the objections that I found from some is that it is not possible to quantify the time that these activities will take: following 30 to 50 students in orientation, in relations with families and in the electronic portfolio is an important commitment, even if against a significant compensation. Finally, in almost all schools, the teachers available are always the same and this ends up burdening so many tasks on a few people".
The deadline for communicating the names of teachers to be started at training courses, previously scheduled for 2 May, has been moved to 31 May. The Ministry expects that starting in September, around 40,000 tutors and counsellors will be operational, helping students in the approximately 70,000 classes of the last three years of upper secondary schools to make informed choices and build a course of study and work. (ANSA).