The author examines the Italian education system during the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Financial difficulties, an overly complex regulatory framework and a general and long-lasting underestimation of education problems by the Italian legislator made it even more difficult to manage the emergency. The pandemic has led to the closure of schools and universities and the transition to distance teaching and learning. During the first semester of the emergency period, the Government adopted several measures by law decrees and executive orders, trying to prevent contagion and to buffer some of the questions. However, a few critical issues seem unsolved and still raise topics of constitutional debate. A slow and cumbersome administration of education together with the problem of the digital divide and the inequalities it reveals, are still apparent. A deep gap in Italian society becoming even deeper – especially in a North-South as well as an Urban-Rural perspective – is the next challenge which politics needs to urgently face in the post-COVID-19 era.

DIMENSIONS OF THE PHENOMENON

On 31 January a State of National Emergency was declared by the Italian Government, exercising a power conferred to the cabinet by Article 24, delegated decree no 1/2018. This resolution allowed a six month period of emergency powers, bringing about consequent changes in decision making, and a shifting to mainly governmental acts, with a series of emergency decrees, on a legislative and administrative level, being approved. In the beginning, the measures taken in order to avoid further spread of the disease were, in particular, meant to prevent citizens’ circulation and gatherings, by limiting fundamental rights, such as freedom of movement, of assembly, religious rituals, etc. A huge debate soon started in the legal sphere and especially among constitutional law scholars, concerning the sources of the law used, the proportionality of measures taken, and more generally the balancing of the right to collective and individual health and other fundamental rights.

Among these outstanding and unprecedented decisions, these concerning the National Education and University System, and its closure, will be analysed here, as they produced a remarkable impact on a large part of the population and the fulfilment of Articles 33 and 34 of the Italian Constitution (Const.).