Full Breakdown
Italy’s New School Decree: Caps on Foreign Pupils and a Ban on Face Coverings
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Decree Approved by the Council of Ministers
On September 25, 2026, Italy’s Council of Ministers approved a decree that bans face coverings—including the burqa and niqab—in all school activities, and sets a 30 % ceiling for pupils who do not hold Italian citizenship in first-year classes. The measure applies from the 2027/28 academic year and includes fines of €200-€1,000 for violations, payable by parents when the offender is a minor.
Scope and Quantitative Impact
The education ministry reports roughly 6.2 million students in state schools (August 2025 data). In the 2024-2025 school year, about 2,600 schools (9 % of the total) had foreign-student shares above 30 %. However, 64.5 % of those foreign pupils were born in Italy, meaning the cap would affect only a small subset. Social-policy researcher Costanzo Ranci estimates the decree could impact around 300 children nationwide, with an upper bound of 1,000 and a possibility of zero effect.
Conversely, Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara has stated that about 34,000 classes currently exceed the 30 % threshold, highlighting a much larger scale of potential application.
Official Rationale
Valditara added that the aim is to promote Italian-language acquisition and to intervene where persistent language barriers hinder a child’s integration, with schools required to report such cases to social services for remedial language courses.
Expert Assessment
Verbatim Quotes
- “My feeling is that the decree will not have a real impact on the day-to-day running of schools,” — Costanzo Ranci, head of the Social Policy Lab at Milan Polytechnic
Conflicting Reports & Gaps
The decree’s projected reach is disputed: the 34,000-class figure cited by the education minister contrasts with the 2,600-school count derived from ministry data analysis. Additionally, the government has not released its own estimate of how many pupils will be directly affected, leaving the true scale of impact uncertain.