Pnrr: what is still to be done for childhood and adolescence
Alessandra Servidori's post
The National Recovery and Resilience Plan contains , with particular note for Missions 4 and 5, a first significant investment in some of the fundamental principles for growth, such as nursery schools, full time, school canteens, safety and quality of learning environments, digital skills. Useful resources to overcome the inequalities that affect minors living in Italy, but who will need an overall long-term strategy and ordinary resources to bring these initiatives to full capacity.
An important role is played by nursery schools, with respect to which the NRR has one of the objectives of increasing the supply of places. 4.6 billion euros are therefore allocated for the "Plan for nursery schools and preschools and early childhood education and care services": resources that are certainly important, even if they will hardly be able to fill the current gap in 'offer, and which will be accompanied by ordinary resources aimed at ensuring, together with the expansion and rebalancing of the territorial network (starting from the most deficient areas), the free service for all girls and all boys, by supporting costs management currently charged to families and municipalities. And above all, the teaching and auxiliary staff that will be the responsibility of local authorities to recruit and ensure.
The Plan also aims to support minors and families through the extension of full school time, through the construction or renovation of about 1,000 canteens and laboratories, for a value of 960 million euros. A figure that will be barely enough for the preparation of new premises in primary school and which will certainly have to be followed by resources at full capacity for about 1.5 billion per year for the necessary staff and about 1.2 billion per year for the management of school canteens. In fact, municipalities are the main public investors, with a capacity far superior to other levels of government.
In 2019, a quarter of public works were carried out by municipalities, well over 19% reached by private investors, surpassed only by the railway sector (38%). And if we aim for green buildings and clean energy, the need for an energy efficiency plan for the existing building stock and the energy transition is evident. Linked to this is public sustainable mobility, which suggests the drafting of a plan for sustainable mobility in urban areas capable of guaranteeing access to an efficient public service integrated with an articulated system of services. In fact, focusing on digital and smart cities, enhancing digital networks to bring entire countries and communities out of isolation means helping the new generations above all and local authorities are an important collector of Big Data that they must learn to manage to make smart city.
The circular economy and the school must be at the center of the city, which focuses on the recovery of the suburbs. A fundamental question is linked to the need for an integrated strategy and a common vision between levels of the State, in fact Recovery Plan, React Eu and Programming 2021-2027 are three parts of the same issue, and the integration and complementarity between these tools it is strategic. Simplifications are needed in terms of authorizations and expenditure procedures for the system of Regions and Local Authorities and a National administrative strengthening plan with the introduction of new fresh forces and a revolving fund for the design because it is necessary a centrality of the territorial systems in the governance of the Plan, assigning them the leading role in the coordination, planning and implementation of the planned interventions.
Regions, Provinces and Municipalities are the institutions to which, necessarily, it will be essential to delegate the grounding not only of territorial investments, but of the main actions identified to promote economic and social recovery. For this they must also find equal centrality in the governance of the management of the NRP that will be identified.
It will be necessary to dedicate priorities to schools, since a share of the resources is expressly addressed to the creation of 100 new upper secondary schools – innovative, digital and sustainable from an energy point of view – one for each Province and Metropolitan City.
In view of the state of the Italian school building assets, the Pnrr allocates an important figure, 3.9 billion euros, for a "Plan for the safety and redevelopment of school buildings". However, it is not clear how these resources are distributed. among the objectives of improving energy classes and increasing the structural safety of buildings. In addition, 800 million are foreseen for the replacement of school buildings and energy requalification, in particular for buildings located in areas with high seismic risk, with interventions on approximately 195 school buildings.
Investments are then allocated to the sector of digital skills, multilingualism and Stems within the curricula of all school cycles, for a value of 1.10 billion euros, plus 2.10 billion euros to support the digital transition of the Italian school system through the introduction of connected teaching devices in approximately 100,000 traditional classrooms, the creation of laboratories for digital professions in the second cycle, the digitization of school administrations and the wiring of approximately 40,000 buildings.
The NRP also addresses territorial gaps, 1 billion and 500 million euros allocated to measure and monitor territorial gaps and develop a strategy to combat school dropout, while just 220 million euros will have to be used to fight against educational poverty in the South. , through the strengthening of socio-educational services in favor of minors with about 2,000 Third Sector initiatives, for a very small audience, of a maximum of 50,000 minors who are in a situation of hardship or at risk. Interventions that must also be put into a system with the programming and resources of the PON Inclusion and be synergistic with the new reform of the single allowance, in order to count on ordinary resources from 2021 onwards, counting precisely on the essential involvement of Local Authorities. We know that the single check will not start in July 2021 because first INPS must reorder all the contributions that are now assigned to the family (baby bonuses, family allowances, etc.).
Inclusion also deals with Mission 5 which provides for the strengthening of sports infrastructures in schools (300 million euros) and the creation of sports facilities and parks for 700 million euros, especially in the most deprived areas and with particular attention to disadvantaged people.
With the approval of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, we hope that a new chapter will open for the promotion of childhood and adolescence in our country, capable of responding to growing inequalities and the needs and aspirations of the new generations. A new direction of travel that is based on the participation of young people themselves in the implementation and monitoring of the Plan and on the commitment at all institutional levels and that they too are inclusive towards all those civic and third sector forces that support the state intervention.
In essence, subsidiarity, participation and accountability must be implemented as reasonably as possible.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/pnrr-cosa-ce-ancora-da-fare-per-infanzia-e-adolescenza/ on Fri, 14 May 2021 05:46:47 +0000.