Twenty-four hours after Italy’s Council of Ministers approved a draft law that would limit the share of foreign pupils in any school class to 30 % and ban full-face coverings such as the burqa and niqab, the measure has yet to reach President Sergio Mattarella for signature. Mayors of major cities, trade unions and student groups staged protests on 26 September, warning that entire schools in multicultural districts could be forced to close or reorganise. Milan’s mayor Giuseppe Sala said that in some neighbourhoods more than half of pupils are of migrant origin: “We risk shutting down classes overnight because of an arithmetic ceiling.” Naples mayor Gaetano Manfredi argued that the rule ignores decades-old migrant communities vital to local textile and agricultural sectors. Education-sector unions SNALS and CISL demanded instead long-term funding for language mediators and teacher training. The government counters that the decree—nicknamed “DL Valditara” after the education minister—will improve integration by preventing linguistic ghettos, while obligatory Italian lessons for migrant parents will be financed by a €14 million fund. Once the text reaches the Quirinale, the president has 30 days to sign or send it back with comments; parliamentary conversion must occur within 60 days. For multinational employers, the proposal has two immediate implications. First, expatriate families posted to Italy could see school allocations reshuffled at short notice, especially in Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna where the foreign-student ratio already exceeds 30 % in more than 4,200 schools. Second, the ban on face-covering garments may affect assignees’ dependants who wear religious attire, requiring HR to update cultural-awareness briefings and legal-compliance checklists. International education consultants advise companies to start mapping alternative schooling options—including bilingual private institutes that fall outside the state cap—and to secure transport allowances in assignment packages should pupils be placed in more distant districts. They also recommend monitoring the final parliamentary text, as regions such as Tuscany are threatening legal challenges that could delay enforcement beyond the 2027-28 school year.
Source: ANSA
