Italian students hold rallies demanding more investments in education
Max Civili
Press TV, Rome
On Friday, students took to the streets across Italy to demand the government earmark more funds in budgetary allocations for education.
Schoolgoers from a number of diversely politically-oriented student organizations marched in large numbers in the cities of Genoa, Rome, Naples and Milan, drawing attention to the consequences of major spending cuts of up to one billion euros per year between 2010 and 2013.
Students also called on the government to halt the mandatory alternation school-work scheme in which school goers are made to work in places to have work experience.
Students are also calling on the government to adopt immediate policies to tackle the country's increasing school dropout rate. Italy runs the risk of losing a million students in the next ten years as its education system dropout reached 14.5% in 2018, almost 4 percentage points above the European average.
School dropout rates remain dangerously high, close to 20%, on Italy's two major islands of Sardinia and Sicily and within the southern Calabria and Campania regions.
Italy invests only four percent of its Gross Domestic Product in education and research which is much less than other European countries. Italian students fear the fact that education has not been prioritized by consecutive governments may result in the Italian society ceasing to value it in the same way too.
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