Teaching art history in schools, Pentastellates resubmit bill

The 5 Star Movement is trying again: four years after the last time, a group of deputies from the Pentastasized party is presenting a bill in the House to reintroduce theteaching of art history at school. It is Bill 632, presented on May 15 on the initiative of MPs Maria Marzana, Francesco D’Uva, Luigi Gallo, Alessandra Carbonaro, Vittoria Casa, Nicola Acunzo, Lucia Azzolina, Marco Bella, Flora Frate, Paolo Lattanzio, Felice Mariani, Alessandro Melicchio, Michele Nitti, Rosa Alba Testamento, Daniela Torto, Manuel Tuzi and Virginia Villani, and assigned to the Culture Commission on August 7. The proposal is practically identical to 2504 of the 17th Legislature, which again Marzana, D’Uva, Gallo and others (the current undersecretary for cultural heritage, Gianluca Vacca, was also there at the time) presented on July 1, 2014: it was assigned to the Culture Commission, but nothing came of it.

The principles that animate the proposal are the same: “Art, like the other sectors of culture,” the bill reads, “represents an asset of irreplaceable social and educational value as well as a strategic element for the growth of the territory and the economy of our country. Italy is known worldwide as the country of beauty and culture: absolute masterpieces, wonderful landscapes, excellent artisans, creative and hospitable people. Our cultural and landscape heritage, spread evenly throughout the country, belongs not only to all Italians, but to all of humanity. Precisely because we are its custodians, the world looks at us and judges us, evaluating our ability to defend, manage and enhance it. True, timely and passionate renewal is needed. We need to have an overall vision and change the image of an Italy too often deemed incapable of safeguarding and preserving its works of art. If enjoying our historical and artistic heritage and cultural assets is a right of every citizen, whoever has the privilege and responsibility of dealing with their management will have to do so with rigor and competence, above partisan opinions. Since we are convinced that culture should be given the same importance as the economy, health, security, justice and education, we believe it is necessary to take action in order to improve first of all the education of the younger generations. Attention to artistic heritage and its protection and enhancement is an essential component of citizenship education and the maturation of young people, for an awareness of national identity that is also linked to the territories.”

For these reasons, the Pentastellati deputies propose that, as of the 2019/2020 school year, the teaching of art history should be “imparted for at least two hours per week in the school courses of secondary schools,” and this for the first two years, while for the next three years paths are identified in which the teaching must be imparted “ensuring the strengthening of the subject in the economic, computer, graphic, communication, tourism, food and wine, technological and environmental areas.” The charges are the same as those envisaged in 2014(693 million euros), but the coverage changes: if in 2014 it was planned to use 8 per 1000, transfers of resources from other ministries and reduction of military spending, the current proposal envisages a reduction of 330 million euros on the Fund for Structural Economic Policy Interventions and a reduction of 363 million euros on “multi-year investments for national defense.”

Teaching art history in schools, Pentastellates resubmit bill

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