By In Trieste
Schools across Italy are about to reopen for the first time since March. But is the country ready?
Teachers in Italy return to work today as schools prepare to begin the new academic year on 14 September, after a nationwide closure of six months due to the pandemic crisis.
School teachers will spend the next week planning and preparing for the arrival of students, with catch-up lessons for some pupils beginning today, both face-to-face and online, reports Italian news agency ANSA.
The new rules for this upcoming school year are:
- Obligatory use of face-masks for the entire duration of the lessons, starting from 6 years of age;
- Body temperature control at home and no admittance to the classroom above 37.5 °C;
- Minimum distance of 1 meter to be respected in all rooms. School directors are asked to apply measures such as:
- Enforcement of hygiene and sanitation rules;
- Buy personal protective equipment (gels, masks and gloves) and organize the work schedule of the school staff for the sanitization of all rooms and surfaces touched by the students;
- Make sure that the standard spaces available are respected and that the distance of 1 meter is maintained; the meter of distance is to be understood “from lip to lip” of the students in the classes, and the obligation to wear the mask (or to speak from behind a protective wall) also applies to the teacher;
- Once the spaces available have been identified, the managers will be able to decide how to remodulate the entry and exit times of students and school teachers or to organize double shifts if necessary;
- There should be differentiated routes for entry, exit and use of the toilets, with relative signs;
- Depending on the space available, additional teaching staff can be requested if necessary;
- There is the possibility to integrate the teaching in the classrooms with remote teaching (the measure is currently provided only for high schools, but can be extended to other classes of students if the number of contagions should return to rise again in a way considered “worrying” by the Ministry).
Admitting that “it will be a tough year,” education minister Lucia Azzolina acknowledged that there is “understandable concern” in relation to schools but stressed that Italy now has “clear rules, among the most rigorous in Europe.”
