In a few hours, the Municipality of Reggio Emilia will welcome Princess Catherine, Princess of Wales, accompanying her on a visit to several municipal nursery schools, those that are still celebrated today as “the most beautiful schools in the world”.
We do not deny that the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education still preserves profoundly innovative foundations today. Yet from the words of the teachers who experience the daily reality of the schools, what emerges is not so much enthusiasm at working in “the most beautiful schools in the world”, but rather a deep sense of exhaustion. This is evident both on the level of working conditions, with overcrowded classes and an increasingly frequent presence of children facing various forms of vulnerability, and on the economic level, with salaries that remain far too low and increasingly unattractive for younger generations entering the labour market.
The schools of Reggio Emilia still shine, but with a light that is steadily fading. Funding is lacking; some schools are forced to rely on self-financing even to purchase reams of paper. Staff are lacking; the growing exodus of teachers towards more profitable professions has become an increasingly widespread phenomenon. Suitable facilities are lacking; there are not enough structures capable of accommodating smaller groups of children and thus allowing truly effective educational work. Not to mention the outsourcing of schools to cooperatives, which only further impoverishes the workers in this already fragile sector.
None of this, however, will be visible to the Princess, just as it is concealed from all the international delegations visiting Reggio Emilia. The Reggio Emilia school system has now been transformed into a commercial showcase populated by children, a space where difficulties are not shown but hidden, because they cannot be sold.
As the Communist Front and the Communist Youth Front, we stand alongside all workers in the early childhood education sector and are ready to struggle together with them to demand more dignified working conditions, wages commensurate with the responsibilities of their role, and a school system that does not reduce the work of children and teachers to a mere commercial product to be displayed on the “education market” before wealthy international delegations.
We want a school that genuinely responds to the needs of children and families, with adequate facilities and staffing, and that can once again become a place protected from the logic of the market. Only this, in our view, can truly be considered educational excellence.
