Italy PM Meloni announces big school plan: Burqa, hijab ban and cap on foreign students

“Italian children cannot feel like a minority in the classroom,” Meloni said at Fenix, a youth festival organised by the youth wing of her Brothers of Italy (FdI) party.

“It’s unthinkable that in an Italian classroom, Italian children feel cornered because they’ve become the minority. It can’t be done,” she added.

Meloni said the government would also introduce a ban on the burqa and hijab in schools. She did not specify the maximum number of foreign students that would be allowed in each class.

According to an estimate by the ISMU ETS Foundation, based on data from Italy’s Ministry of Education and Merit (MIM), there are more than 930,000 students with non-Italian citizenship in the country.

They account for 11.6% of the total number of students enrolled from nursery school through secondary school. The figure includes students born both in Italy and abroad.

The proposed classroom cap comes amid an ongoing debate in Italy over the concentration of students with limited Italian-language proficiency in some schools. Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara said earlier this month that the existing 30% limit on foreign students per class had not been effectively implemented and that the government intended to establish the rule through legislation.

The head of Italy’s national association of school principals, Antonello Giannelli, said the idea could be understandable from an educational perspective but warned that implementing a fixed cap could be difficult, particularly in areas where foreign-born or foreign-citizen residents make up a large share of the local population.

Italy, located on the Mediterranean migration route, has faced sustained migration pressures for years. Migration and integration have remained major political issues for successive Italian governments.