2025
Published the draft of the new National guidelines for the curriculum for preprimary education and the first cycle of education
The Ministry of education and merit has published the draft of the revised curriculum that applies to preprimary, primary and lower secondary education.
In 2024 the Ministry has set up a commission in charge of drawing up a revised text of the National guidelines for the curriculum published in 2012. The commission is made up of experts in the pedagogy and it collaborates with sub-commissions made up of experts in the various disciplines taught at primary and lower secondary education.
As for preprimary education, the text describes the fields of experience, while for school education the new guidelines describe, for each subject:
- The reasons for teaching it,
- The aims of teaching it,
- The specific learning objectives expected at certain grades of primary and lower secondary education
- The competences and knowledge to be achieved in primary and in lower secondary education.
The publication of the draft text will be followed by a consultation phase with the involvement of stakeholders, professional associations, parents’ and students’ associations, and trade unions. The end of the consultation will start the formal phase for the adoption of the new national guidelines that will apply from school year 2026/2027 to the preprimary education and to the first cycle of education.
The National system for the evaluation of school managers
On 12 March 2025, the Ministry of education and merit has signed the Decree no. 47 on the adoption of the National system for the evaluation of school managers.
The evaluation system aims at verifying the competences of school managers, in particular for the transparent and efficient management, for the development of human resources, for the improvement of school activities and for the relations with the territory and other institutions.
The evaluation is organised in three phases:
- Definition of the objectives
- Assignment of the objectives
- Measurement and evaluation of the results
- Possible adversarial phase
The procedure starts in July of each year with the definition of the objectives for the following school year and ends within November of the following year.
The subjects involved in these three phases are, beside the school managers, the heads of the Department of the Ministry of education and the heads of the Regional school offices and of the territorial offices at provincial level.
The results of the assessment procedure determine the part of school managers’ pay that is calculated on their performance.
The new assessment procedures apply starting from school year 2024/2025. In the transitional phase, the objectives will be defined within March 2025 and the procedure will end within November 2026.
The Decree is being registered.
2024
Civic education
In September 2024, the Ministry of education and merit has published the ‘Guidelines for the teaching of civic education’ (Linee guida per l’insegnamento dell’educazione civica, annexed to the DM 183/2024). From school year 2020/2021, ‘civic education' is a compulsory and cross-curricular subject at all levels of education, preprimary included. As for preprimary education, the Guidelines, refer to the field of experiences described for this level of education in the Indicazioni nazionali per il curricolo. The fields of experience (the self and others; body and movement; images, sounds and colours; speech and words; knowledge of the world) contribute to gradually develop the awareness of personal and of other’s identity, the gradual maturing of respect for oneself and others, of health, of well-being, of the first knowledge of cultural phenomena, as well as the awareness that one's existence is realised within a society, based on rules, dialogue and confrontation, which manifests itself in behaviour that respects others, the environment and nature. To lead children to these goals, teachers are recommended use the play of fiction, imagination and identification to make children experience several roles simulating the life of adults.
The Guidelines confirm the ban on the use of smartphones for personal end teaching purposes, from preprimary to lower secondary education, as already ordered by the Ministry in the Circular letter n. 5274 issued in July 2024.
2023
There have been no reforms.