Meloni: Use of burqas and veils by girls in Italian schools will be banned

🔸Giorgia Meloni, Prime Minister of Italy, announced on Sunday, 29 Shahrivar, that the country’s government is preparing a plan to ban face coverings in schools and to set a limit on the number of foreign students in each class.

🔸At the annual meeting of the youth branch of the party “Brothers of Italy,” Meloni said: “A proposal will soon be submitted in a cabinet meeting so that the maximum number of foreign students in each class is legally determined.”

🔸She also said the plan will require the parents of foreign students who are facing serious problems in integrating into the education system to learn Italian, and that wearing burqas and veils in schools will be banned.

🔸The Prime Minister of Italy added: “If only one child in an Italian class does not understand, that child can probably learn the language quickly and integrate with help from classmates and teachers. But if the number of children who do not understand the language becomes large, or even forms the majority of the class, then one can no longer talk about integration; rather, it means abandoning them.” Meloni did not specify what the maximum number of foreign students in each class would be.

🔸Reuters, citing data from the ISMU research foundation, wrote that students who do not hold Italian citizenship make up 11.6% of all students in Italian schools—meaning approximately 12 out of every 100 students.

🔸Mrs. Meloni said: “You must appear at school with your face uncovered, and in Italy no one can decide in the name of a real or supposed tradition that a young woman should hide herself.”

🔸Due to its geographic position in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy is one of the European countries with the highest exposure to the arrival of migrants, and the issue of immigration has turned into a sensitive and major challenge for successive governments in this country.