The bureaucracy variant is crushing the country more than Covid: schools amidst chaos and discrimination
Italy is characterized by enormous forms and guided by an immense bureaucracy that slows down every single administrative and civil action of citizens. The cumbersome bureaucracy still remains our Achilles heel. In this case, when we talk about a structural problem, we cannot think of solving it with some measure or in a short period of time. This is clear. It would therefore be superfluous, and unfair, to entrust all responsibility to the executive in office. However, it is a duty to criticize, even harshly, a government that does nothing to solve it and, moreover, only manages to feed it.
Bureaucratic intrusiveness is exceeding all limits. With the decree of 5 January we have three decrees in two weeks. If, on the other hand, we take into consideration the entire month of December, the result changes but the concern remains: five decrees in a single month including the last, approved by the Council of Ministers on January 5th. I don't want to bore you with numbers but this is the only way to convey the idea of the new variant of the aforementioned Italian bureaucracy: the decree law. Recalling the definition of a decree law, as a "provision with the force of law adopted by the government in extraordinary cases of necessity and urgency ", and deliberately underlining the last part of the definition, I find it helpful to begin to understand the alarming situation bureaucratic and legislative that an Italian citizen is forced to face in these days.
The decree law has become the new and particular instrument of the invasive Italian bureaucracy characterized by an infinite form and by incomprehensible regulations. Decrees that, instead of simplifying, offer citizens rules that are increasingly difficult to understand and, even worse, most of the time inapplicable. Law decrees that follow one another over a few days and that are one in contradiction with the other. The quarantine rules, already largely undecipherable, have been dismantled and reassembled at will. The quick swab was questioned, only to become a reliable tool again. It's all like that. And the latest excuse of the "ever-changing pandemic" can only convince the unwary.
To tell the truth, the virus, with the Omicron variant, has changed, the pandemic has certainly evolved, but it is good to remember that it has evolved for the better. Omicron is in fact less lethal, albeit more contagious, and far less serious than the Delta variant. However, we persist in maintaining the closing regulations of a year and a half ago and, not satisfied, we add new ones, more and more stringent. This creates the merciless paradox of law decrees containing strict rules which, due to their difficulty in implementing them, result in nothing.
To corroborate these words and carry them into everyday life, I take the example of the school. The slogan, because it is now what we are talking about, of the school in the presence is correct in substance but when applied on the field it risks remaining on paper. A little over a month ago, the education minister, Patrizio Bianchi, had promised the reopening of schools in the presence without resorting to distance learning. Sacrosanct promise, which unfortunately collides with the latest decree law. In kindergartens, with only one positive, quarantine is triggered for the whole class. Decision taken after noting that, fortunately, children under the age of five are not included in the vaccination campaign. For primary schools, on the other hand, after two positives, the class will go to Dad for at least 10 days. In middle and high schools, online teaching is triggered after three positives in the same class. But for children aged 12 to 19, the cleaver of bureaucracy falls twice here: with the second infection, the distinction is made between vaccinated and unvaccinated. The latter will have to stay at home while their vaccinated companions can safely carry out lessons in presence.
All this without taking into consideration the difficulty for teachers to manage half of the class in attendance and the other half from home. Without understanding that, creating this division between vaccinated and unvaccinated, even among children, creates a heavy and mostly useless climate. I go even further. These rules create very serious discrimination, especially when it comes to adolescent children and mostly underlying the decisions of the parents.
Nasty rules that add to even more worrying statements. Lastly, let's take the appeal of the principals who, instead of promoting a sudden return to normality, take the side of the most closed-minded ministers and support distance learning with swordplay. Forgetting the importance of the school as an essential asset which, instead of being protected, is struck by the rigorist ideology and ultimately by the bureaucratic rules of the law decrees.
In conclusion, the immense bureaucracy that characterizes our country is a big boulder that is difficult to leave behind but once again Italy has lost an opportunity. The pandemic could be an important launching pad for rethinking the bureaucratic system itself and starting from the responsibility of citizens. While the government with one hand exalted cohesion and social unity, with the other it regulated every single element of the working and public life of citizens. Thus, with this same mindset, the government eliminated a priori solutions such as DIY tampons, an effective and massive tracking campaign in schools, home care and numerous other solutions that could have helped, along with the vaccine, the most effective weapon, to slow the pandemic. We have neglected the essential role of general practitioners and pediatricians, who occupy a position of relative proximity to the citizen. We have not considered the solution of distributing free quick swabs to each family on a weekly basis. Proceeding in this way has dramatically increased the rules and made them even more stringent but inapplicable de facto.
And the multiplication of bureaucratic contradictions is the signal of a government that has lost its compass, letting itself be guided by the chaotic search for an agreement between the parties and forgetting, perhaps, the easier to find and more efficient agreement: the agreement with the citizen.
The post The bureaucracy variant is crushing the country more than Covid: schools amidst chaos and discrimination appeared first on Atlantico Quotidiano .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL https://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/la-variante-burocrazia-sta-stritolando-il-paese-piu-del-covid-le-scuole-tra-caos-e-discriminazioni/ on Tue, 11 Jan 2022 03:52:00 +0000.