Italy to require Italian lessons for some migrant parents and ban face coverings in schools

 Italy to require Italian lessons for some migrant parents and ban face coverings in schools Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Sund...

 Italy to require Italian lessons for some migrant parents and ban face coverings in schools

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Sunday her government will soon bring a measure before the Cabinet requiring some parents of foreign pupils to learn Italian, imposing a legal cap on the number of foreign students per classroom, and banning burqas and niqabs in schools.

The announcement came at Fenix, the annual event of Gioventù Nazionale, the youth wing of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party. Meloni presented the package as a correction to what she called failed integration.

“A measure will soon be presented to a Cabinet meeting to legally establish a maximum number of foreign students per class. It also requires parents of foreign students facing serious difficulties integrating into the school system to learn Italian and bans burqas and niqabs in schools,” she said.

She drew a distinction between a single child who does not speak Italian and classrooms where language barriers become widespread. “If there is only one child in a class who doesn’t understand Italian, that child will likely be able to learn the language and integrate quickly with the help of classmates and teachers. However, if the number of children who don’t understand the language becomes large — or even the majority — that is no longer integration; it is neglect,” Meloni said. She added that Italian children “cannot feel like a minority in the classroom.”

On clothing, she tied the ban to gender equality rather than security alone. “You must go to school with your face uncovered, and in Italy no one, in the name of a real or supposed tradition, can decide that a young woman must hide herself. Equality between men and women is non-negotiable.”