The school of the future at the center of the sixth edition of the Summer School organized by Dicaar

An interdisciplinary debate on the school of the future, rethinking the learning spaces of the buildings to be redeveloped, which take on an urban connotation. It is the main theme of the sixth edition of the "Summer School Innovative Learning Spaces Inside-out schools", scheduled until tomorrow in the premises of the architecture school in Cagliari and which today saw various professionals in the sector and representatives of regional policy confront each other.

An international workshop that involved thirty international institutions and sixty students who, together with world-renowned architects, are working on the redevelopment of about twenty school centers in the Metropolitan City of Cagliari located between Cagliari, Pirri, Selargius, Monserrato and Quartu.

«The summer school - explains Massimo Faiferri, professor of Dicaar - works in collaboration with the Metropolitan City of Cagliari, with which we have selected the schools and the Region of Sardinia which has financed this initiative by inserting it within a collaboration protocol for a training activities also linked to the public administration". For the mayor of Cagliari, Paolo Truzzu, the school is at the center of everything. «More beautiful buildings and more advanced study systems are a guarantee of more profitable studies. Specifically, my administration has chosen to redo 52 municipal school gardens for a total of 150,000 square meters. These are interventions financed with 3 million euros of REACT-EU funds that will improve teaching, sports and recreational activities".

Also present at the debate was the regional councilor for public education, Andrea Biancareddu, who underlined "how the quality of school infrastructures is of fundamental importance to combat the serious phenomenon of early school leaving and the achievement of poor results in basic skills by the students of Sardinia», recalling precisely that early school leaving is a serious problem, and the lack of adequate structures helps to perpetuate this phenomenon. "Since 2019, adding up all the different sources of funding, the Sardinia Region has planned over 300 million euros for school construction".

«The Regional Council has planned all the resources that have become available for the Iscol@ interventions, however we cannot fail to consider that these are infrastructural interventions, which are therefore affected by the complexities linked to public assignments», added Biancareddu, «for the next programming period 2021-2027, in addition to definitively solving the problems relating to safety, the aspects concerning the sustainability and integration of school buildings in the local community will be significantly increased. The goal is to have at least 70-80% of school buildings efficient and able to accompany modern educational processes by increasing the integration of school buildings into the network of facilities serving the community".

The rector of the University of Cagliari, Francesco Mola, instead recalled that «the University's effort is to invest more and more in the territory and in the relationship with the institutions, which must not be begging but true collaboration, also because we have to our principals. There has been a lot of talk about Covid and distance learning, the push from the student population not to return to the classrooms. The problem has been dismissed as a matter of convenience. But, if a student prefers his own home, it means that there are space problems and that these need to be rethought. The model of the teacher's study, attached to the classroom for the students, may no longer work, there are other more livable solutions».