Italy’s government is preparing two bills that would ban girls from covering their faces in schools and limit the number of foreign pupils in classrooms.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni made the announcement while speaking at the annual event of the youth wing of her party, Brothers of Italy, Politico reports.
Meloni said Italian children should not feel like a minority in educational institutions. She stressed that when most children in a class do not understand the language of instruction, that is no longer integration but neglect.
According to the Fondazione ISMU research institute, around 930,000 pupils without Italian citizenship are currently studying in Italian schools. That is almost 11.6% of the total number of schoolchildren. At the same time, over the past decade the number of foreign minors in the country has fallen by 4.5%.
Meloni has not yet disclosed details of what specific limits the government plans to introduce for foreign pupils.
- The first European Union country to ban the wearing in public places of Muslim clothing that completely conceals the face was France.
- In 2018, Denmark passed a law banning people from appearing in public places wearing head coverings and items of clothing that fully cover the face.
- In Germany, a similar law was passed in 2017: women in the civil service are not allowed to wear head coverings that conceal the face, including the niqab or burqa.
- That same year, the Dutch parliament voted to introduce a ban on wearing the burqa and niqab.