Italy imposes limit on foreign students in first grades

The Italian government has approved a decree introducing a limit on the number of foreign students in first grades of school. Their share must not exceed 30%, but the rule will not apply to all children with foreign citizenship, but primarily to newly arrived students who are not yet sufficiently integrated into the Italian education system.

In primary school, the limit will apply to students without Italian citizenship who were born outside Italy and did not attend an Italian kindergarten for at least two years. Their share in each first grade must not exceed 30%.

In middle and high school, a similar limit will apply to foreign students who have not successfully completed at least three academic years in the Italian national education system.

Thus, foreign citizenship alone will not automatically mean being subject to a quota. For example, a child who has already studied in Italy for several years and speaks Italian will not be included in the established limit.

Minister of Education Giuseppe Valditara explained that the main goal of the reform is to prevent the creation of classes where a large number of recently arrived children have poor understanding of Italian. According to him, the criterion must be primarily related to the level of integration into the education system.

The rule also applies to foreign citizens from EU countries if they do not meet the established requirements for previous education in Italy. For Ukrainian students, the restriction may also be relevant—primarily for children who have recently arrived in the country and are entering Italian school for the first time.

The government does not plan to disband existing classes. The new requirements should be applied when distributing students and forming first grades, and in areas with a high concentration of foreign families, exceptions will be provided if it is impossible to distribute children among neighboring schools.

For schools where meeting the limit is objectively difficult, authorities also intend to strengthen language support. The government provides about 14 million euros annually for additional Italian language lessons for foreign students.

The 30% limit is formally not entirely new for Italy. Back in 2010, a similar target was set by a Ministry of Education circular, but it did not have the force of law and was not widely applied. Now the government is transferring this principle to the level of a legislative act.

According to Italian media, about 950,000 children with foreign citizenship are currently studying in the country's schools—approximately 11% of all students. A significant portion of them were born and raised in Italy, so the new limit will affect only part of this group.

Sources: ANSA, Corriere della Sera