Budget law, in Sardinia numerous schools at risk: "They will be cancelled"

Sardinia risks an unprecedented cancellation of schools. The budget law approved on 21 November by the council of ministers provides for it. The news began to circulate among insiders, after reading the provision, then ended up on specialized sites and now to the attention of Anci Sardegna, the association that brings together the municipalities of the island. Which through the mouth of the president Emiliano Deiana raises the alarm.

Reserving the right to go deeper into the matter, he says: « We need a Sardinian law on Education and Training in application of article 5 of the Statute which leverages linguistic specificity, also referred to by the national law. Otherwise, year after year, everything and everywhere will close down».

School autonomy will disappear first, about 700 throughout Italy, then the actual schools could "fall". All a question of sizing and number of students. And Sardinia has the worst characteristics.

The competence in this matter lies with the Region. The budget law provides that the sizing plan must be approved «by 30 November of each year, within the limits of the annual quota identified by the decree. (...) A time delay, not exceeding 30 days, can be determined with a reasoned resolution of the Regional Council».

If there is no agreement between the State and the Region, the government issues a non-regulatory decree by 31 August "in which it decides the contingents of managers on the basis of a coefficient not lower than 900 and not higher than 1000" and in which account will be taken of the number «of pupils enrolled in state scholastic institutions and of the statutory workforce» and «integrated by the parameter of the density of inhabitants per square kilometre». And here we would come to the massacre for the island.

In the coming years there would be "a cut in school autonomy without precedent in history", explains Gianluca Corda, director of the Amsicora high school in Olbia and Oschiri. To make the impact of the provision understood, the principal goes into detail: «Consider that already today, with the parameter of 600 students for autonomy, there are schools in Sardinia with over twenty complexes in numerous different municipalities. Schools», he adds, «where the staff is already divided and will have to be divided into blocks tens of kilometers away, connected by roads that are certainly not those of Lombardy or the Veneto, or of a metropolis where it makes sense to have institutes with higher numbers ».

And here is an example: «Let's imagine», adds Corda, «a school in the Ogliastra or Barbagia area, or in Gallura: with schools that already today have complexes ranging from Pattada, Buddusó, Alà dei Sardi and which they should arrive in Padru, Loiri or towards the Goceano to reach 900 students ».

Corda and Deiana are on the same line: the Region must enforce the specificity, also following the recognition of insularity in the Constitution.