Save the Children report: 1,571 Italian school sites closed in ten years

Closures and falling enrolment

Save the Children's 17th Atlas of Children at Risk in Italy, titled 'Scuola liberatutti', was released on 12 November ahead of World Children's Day on 20 November. It counts 1,571 school sites closed nationally over the past decade, as demographic decline removed more than 800,000 pupils from classrooms. About 3,000 municipalities risk losing their only primary school, the Atlas says. Campania recorded the largest local loss with 277 sites, followed by Veneto with 119, Abruzzo with 93, Sardinia with 91 and Molise with 38, while Umbria lost only four. Mixed-age classes and merged institutes are rising in several regions, and Istat projections point to further falls in the school-age population by 2036.

Campania277

Veneto119

Abruzzo93

Sardinia91

Molise38

Umbria4

Campania

277 schools

Veneto

119 schools

Abruzzo

93 schools

Sardinia

91 schools

Molise

38 schools

Umbria

4 schools

Data from the article text

Buildings and safety

Safety certification is the weakest part of the national picture. Nearly two in three Italian school buildings (62.8%) lack an occupancy certificate, and over a third lack all three essential certificates covering occupancy, fire prevention and central heating boiler approval. The share without an occupancy certificate is 52.2% in Molise, 69.6% in Abruzzo and 85.8% in Sardinia, where 53% also lack the full set of three. In Abruzzo 64.2% of schools have no gym, while Trentino stands out with 90% of schools having one, the best figure in Italy. Accessibility also varies widely, with 38.6% of schools in Pescara province free of architectural barriers against 47.5% in L'Aquila.

Italy62.8%

Molise52.2%

Abruzzo69.6%

Sardinia85.8%

Italy

62.8 %

Molise

52.2 %

Abruzzo

69.6 %

Sardinia

85.8 %

Data from the article text

Teachers, drop-out and funding

Reliance on substitute teachers remains high, with substitutes making up 27.2% of primary teachers in Abruzzo, 24.5% of lower secondary and 21.3% of upper secondary. In Sardinia, Sassari has the highest share of substitutes in primary at 26.2%. Early school leaving shows a mixed picture: national drop-out stands at 8.2%, already below the EU 2030 target of under 9%, while Abruzzo (5.3%) and Umbria (4.9%) do better. Sardinia's 13.6% is the highest in Italy along with Sicily, and in Trentino the rate is 5.2% in Trento and 9% in Bolzano. Education spending is 4% of GDP, rising to 4.1% in 2025 thanks to recovery funds that run out in 2027, and about 70% of it goes to school staff.

Raffaela Milano, Save the Children's research director, said the falling school population must not lead to less investment in education.

“The decline in the school population cannot turn into disinvestment in schooling, but must be an opportunity to improve the quality of the educational offer for all students.”

Regional picture

Regional gaps are wide. In Abruzzo, 52% of 14-19-year-olds in Teramo province live in a municipality with no upper secondary school, against 27.9% in Pescara, and only 25.4% of primary classes run full time, versus 40.3% nationally. In Veneto, more than half of 14-19-year-olds live in municipalities without upper secondary schools in every province except Venice (47.3%). In Trentino-Alto Adige the figure is 58.6% in Bolzano and 49% in Trento. Umbria's figures are lower, at 26.3% in Terni and 21.5% in Perugia. In Sardinia nearly one in two 14-19-year-olds in Oristano and South Sardinia lives without an upper secondary school, and mixed-age primary classes rose by 53 to 114. In Campania there are 150 mixed-age classes, one fewer than in 2018-19, and in Molise full-time primary classes exist in only three of every 100 classes.