Minister Valditara: "Today we lay the first stone of the revolution of merit in the Italian school"
"The great revolution of merit begins with the establishment of tutors and guidance teachers": said Minister Giuseppe Valditara after last night's meeting between the Ministry of Education and Merit and the trade unions, in which he was presented the draft decree which provides, with an allocation of 150 million euros in 2023, for the establishment of two professional figures, one dedicated to developing the personalization of education in upper secondary schools and the other to implementing the activity of guidance: the tutor teacher and the guidance teacher. Here are the main features of the provision, which after yesterday's confrontation will be submitted to the opinion of the Higher Council of Public Education.
The decree goes in the direction of a school that brings out the talents of each student by triggering a virtuous path, also aimed at overcoming the difficulties resulting from social and territorial inequalities and favoring informed choices for the study and work path.
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Specifically, starting from the 2023/2024 school year, the tutor teacher will have the task of coordinating and developing teaching activities in favor of a personalization of education in the third, fourth and fifth grades of upper secondary schools, promoting recovery for children who show greater difficulties and allowing those who have particular talents to enhance them. The guidance teacher will instead have to encourage guidance activities to allow children to make choices in line with their aspirations, potential and life plans, in the awareness of the different study and/or work paths and the variety of offers in the territories, of the productive and university world. This approach must take place with respect for the autonomy of individual institutions, students and their families.
“A virtuous school model – said Valditara – must highlight the talents of each individual student. For this - added Valditara -, with a significant allocation of resources, as a Ministry we have decided to focus on specialized professional figures who will be adequately trained, selected and paid. All in constant dialogue with the trade union parties”.
The 150 million euros envisaged as the initial endowment for the year 2023 are intended to remunerate the approximately 40.000 tutor teachers to which must be added those of guidance teachers, one for each school; they will be distributed in schools in proportion to the number of students in the third, fourth and fifth grades of upper secondary school (2023/2024 school year). The schools will then organize the service independently.
School institutions will also be able to access funding deriving from the PNRR and the PON to remunerate educational activities to enhance the disciplines and innovative activities for guidance. The actions already envisaged in the PNRR, which will be distributed among all the scholastic institutions in the next few days, amount to approximately 600 million, with particular reference to the orientation towards STEM disciplines and with innovative methodologies, to which must be added the activities concerning guidance as a measure to combat early school leaving, for an additional 1,5 billion euros. Schools will also be able to use the resources of the NOP of the new 2021-2027 programming to remunerate extra-curricular activities on educational orientation for around 300 million.
TRAINING REQUIREMENTS
The Ministry will communicate to each institute the minimum number of tutor teachers to be trained through a path defined on the specific platform in collaboration with INDIRE (National Institute of Documentation, Innovation and Educational Research), which will last 20 hours and which will end with an exam.
THE INSTITUTE CONTRACT
Each school, within the scope of its autonomy, will identify the teachers who will participate in the 20 hours of training, preferably among those who meet certain requirements indicated by the ministerial decree, and define the related fees through supplementary school contracts .
In line with the orientation guidelines launched before Christmas 2022, this is the first step of an increasingly personalization of teaching that will involve all first and second grade secondary schools in the coming years.
As mentioned, the proposal was presented yesterday to the trade union organizations, with which it will pursue further study in the coming days, and forwarded to the National Council of Public Education for its opinion, with a view to the great alliance for schools and the necessary institutional confrontation.