Respect for teachers and local
culture must be brought back into the classroom, Deputy Premier
and Transport Minister Matteo Salvini said on Friday.
"Solidarity with the headmaster of the French high school
Maurice Ravel," wrote Salvini on X, formerly Twitter, referring
to the principal who resigned earlier this week after receiving
death threats in connection with his request for a student to
remove her hijab, or Islamic veil.
"Forget do-goodery, respect for teachers and our culture must be
brought back into the classroom," added the leader of the
right-wing League.
Salvini's post came the day after Education Minister Giuseppe
Valditara, also of the League, said the government will take
measures to try to ensure that the majority of Italian school
classes are made up of Italian pupils and that foreign students
assimilate along with their parents by learning Italian language
and culture, and not living in separate communities.
"If one agrees that foreigners should assimilate into the
fundamental values enshrined in the Constitution, this will
happen more easily if the majority in the classes are Italians,
if they study Italian in an enhanced manner where they do not
already know it well, if Italian history, literature, art, and
music are taught in depth in the schools, if their parents are
also involved in learning the Italian language and culture, and
if they do not live in separate communities," he said.
Salvini on Wednesday himself proposed a 20% cap on the number of
foreign pupils in Italian schools, prompting Florence Mayor
Diego Nardella of the opposition centre-left Democratic Party
(PD) to say "when we expel them, where are we going to put them?
Salvini ignores the real Italy".
The League responded Thursday by calling Nardella "a radical
chic who doesn't know the problems in Italian schools".
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