The most recent example, in chronological order, is the Emilia-Romagna region, which is looking for full-time teachers but cannot find them. Blame it on the increasingly high cost of living, which affects Italians and forces many teachers to stay as substitute teachers in the South, close to home, instead of getting permanent jobs in the schools of the North Center, the Italian press writes.

Due to the “call veloce”, a procedure that allows teachers to move from their region/province to get a position early, only 17 teachers arrived in Emilia-Romagna for the 2,137 available places.

A similar situation is observed in Lombardy, where only one hundred requests were received for 2,600 available places.

It is certain that the choice of teachers is influenced by the rising cost of living and the realization that, especially in large cities, a salary of 1,200-1,300 euros is not enough, especially if you also take into account the payment of rent.

According to the union, which has always been sensitive to the issue, there is another aspect blocking the transfer of teachers from the south to the north: mobility rules (with few exceptions, three years must pass before a transfer can be requested). And so, year after year, many departments in the North remain without full-time professors and will be filled by substitutes. Trade unions have already estimated that there will be approximately 200,000 substitutes in the 2023/24 school year.

In recent months, Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara has addressed this issue by introducing new forms of funding/support to raise teacher salaries. The idea divided the school world in two, and for now it has been abandoned.

Italians are looking forward to the start of the new school year.

On September 11, 2023, the bell will ring for the first time in the regions of Piedmont, Trentino and Valle d’Aosta, marking the official start of classes.

On September 12, pupils from Lombardy will come to school, and on the 13th – from the regions of Abruzzo, Basilicata, Campania, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Marche, Sicily, Umbria and Veneto. For young people from Calabria, Liguria, Molise, Puglia and Sardinia, the return to school is scheduled for September 14, while on September 15 students from the regions of Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany and Lazio will answer the call of the directory.

The article was created with the support of the Rador agency