Italy plans cap on foreign students per class and bans burqa and hijab in schools

Proposed classroom quotas and language rules

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced an upcoming government decree aimed at altering classroom composition and integration requirements across the national school system. Speaking from the stage at Fenix, the festival organised by Gioventù Nazionale, the youth movement of her party Fratelli d'Italia, Meloni outlined key proposals set for imminent examination by the Council of Ministers. The draft legislation establishes a legally binding ceiling on the maximum number of foreign students permitted in any individual classroom. In tandem with the classroom cap, the measure introduces an obligation for the parents of foreign students who experience severe integration difficulties to learn the Italian language.

A measure is about to arrive in the Council of Ministers that introduces by law a maximum number of foreign students per class, introduces an obligation for the parents of foreign students with severe integration difficulties to learn Italian, and introduces a ban on the burqa and hijab in schools.

Meloni stated that the demographic composition of classrooms must not result in domestic pupils feeling alienated or outnumbered in their daily studies.

It is unacceptable that in an Italian classroom, Italian children feel cornered because they have become the minority. It cannot happen.

Bans on religious veils in schools

The legislative package slated for the Council of Ministers also establishes explicit prohibitions against religious veils within state schools. Meloni confirmed that the incoming regulations will formally ban both the burqa and the hijab across all educational institutions. Addressing the Fenix youth gathering, the Prime Minister characterized the restrictions as a fundamental defence of secularism, visibility, and gender equality in Italian public life. She maintained that educational instruction must occur with an uncovered face, rejecting any traditional or cultural justifications that mandate the concealment of young women.

People go to school with an uncovered face, and in Italy no one, in the name of a real or presumed tradition, can decide that a young woman must hide herself. Equality between men and women is not negotiable. It is not in our streets, and it is not in our schools.

Equal status for technical education

Alongside measures on classroom quotas and religious dress, Meloni announced a structural rebranding of the country's vocational education system. The government plans to approve a decree extending the academic title of liceo to technical and professional institutes. Meloni stated that renaming these institutions aims to eliminate historical distinctions in perceived social and academic standing between vocational tracks and traditional humanities-focused high schools. She stated that the reform affirms equal dignity and worth for technical pathways as well as the students enrolled in them. The collective measures are scheduled to be submitted directly to the Council of Ministers for official adoption.

I am proud to announce that we will soon pass the measure introducing the designation of liceo for technical and professional institutes, because starting with the name we want it to be clear that these schools are of equal value and that the people who attend them are of equal value.