In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
Migrant education is a very complicated area. You need to give migrant students special help to learn the language without causing problems to the rest of the class and they also have the right to be properly educated and to the best of their abilities. On the other hand, the integration of migrant students into mainstream is absolutely necessary. You could perhaps keep them at the very start into "ponte" classes to help them to gain minimal confidence in the new language and learn some basics which will enable them to understand basic instructions; however, for the good of migrant children and their integration this should only be for a very limited period. Then you would need a certain number of "remedial teachers" to help migrant children with their work as they will still have difficulties over a period of time to catch up with the rest of the class. Also, not all migrant children will be able to get help at home, which is another big issue to solve. After school assistance would be highly recommended but it implies extra costs to the system.
Limiting percentages could be a suitable solution, providing that the government could ensure that there would be enough classes for all the kids involved and this may be a problem in certain country areas. There are no easy solutions and I do not envy the education authorities trying to find alternatives.
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
Moved to [url=http://www.italiauncovered.co.uk]Italia Uncovered[/url]
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
That's a good idea- base the percentage on the proportion of immigrant children in the local area. Hope they do that and don't set a national percentage.
I'm guessing by immigrant they mean non-Italian citizen- I could be wrong though.
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
The word immigrant would apply to anyone who does not hold Italian citizenship. Another consideration is primary native tongue, although Italian is not a language widely used or known outside Italy. Actually, it is the mother tongue issue the most important in the case of education and the one that is going to pose all the problems.
As JC says, country areas are not going to have too many problems. These will happen in larger cities with larger migrant intake and not too many schools within reasonable distance able to take migrant children whose primary native tongue is not Italian. That is where the education authorities are going to have problems implementing policies.
Reduced numbers of migrant children in each class is not a negative point. On the contrary, in smaller groups it will be easier for them to integrate with Italian children and overcome language and cultural barriers at a faster rate. All this without causing any problems to the Italian children's own education process.
It is a very delicate balance and, as it always is the case, to be able to do the right thing for everybody concerned you need to have an injection of funds in the school system to pay for extra teachers, teacher-aides and professionals to help. And money is in very short supply, particularly for education.
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
By 'immigrant' I rather suspect they mean '[I][U]non[/U] white and [/I][U]no[/U][I][U]n[/U] [/I]EU' or ex Eastern Bloc immigrants.
They (NL and PdI) don't seem too bothered about targetting 'affluent' white immigrants - they're far too valuable to upset.
The 30% ratio does look workable in large cities, as does the 'pro rata' per population idea.. but they will go for whatever option will leave classes mainly populated by white Italians. They see segregation as a means of weakening any foothold these different nationalities and religeous groups try to establish here.
But that 30% per class would be a disaster in many of the little elementary schools in Italy. I can only cite my own village where there are some Peruvians (brought here by a missionary in the local church), some Moroccans and a family of Sengalese. All have a number of children of elementary school age - an ideal age to learn a new language with ease - but the classes in the village are so small that there are going to be some where the 30% will be exceeded - and as someone else asked "What about the others then?" What must they do? Only get an education in classes where their numbers don't break these questionable (insane) quotas?
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
Actually, Carole, the Peruvians will not have as many problems as the others as their native tongue will be Spanish (and possibly Quechua) and Spanish is very close to Italian. For this reason, being young children at an elementary school they should be able to become quite proficient in Italian at a fast rate. As for the Moroccans and Senegalese it will be a totally different situation.
On the other hand, the fact that classes are small will be beneficial for all groups concerned. Much easier to integrate if you have a small number of children.
I am more concerned for migrant children from a low socio-economical background in schools with a larger ratio of students per class. If you are a primary school children with a class of say 30 students, of which some 10 are non-native Italian speakers you have a mammoth task in your hands and quite possibly the whole of your class will suffer the consequences.
As I said before, if the government wants to do the right thing they need to inject funds into the system and to have as many specialist teachers as they can. By the way, is there such a thing as a specialist remedial teacher for migrant education in Italy? Do they prepare graduates for that task?
Take the example of the US a few decades ago: there was no limit on the percentage of African-American kids in segregated all black schools. But it was quite racist, because the black schools were funded/staffed at a fraction of the per student rate given white schools.
So limiting the percentage of immigrant children in Italian classrooms could result in better education for them if it helps ensure their classes are funded at the all-Italian school rate.
If the alternative is segregating the immigrant children instead into separate classes (ponte classes), they might be given a lower quality education, if the govt funds/staffs them at lower levels. It easily can end that way as their parents may have less influence on apportionment of government spending for schools.
Given those options, I'd favor limiting the percentage and having the immigrant children stay in classes with the Italian kids. Not to mention the increased integration into Italian culture it would produce.