Home to Italy’s largest foreign student population, Tuscany hosts about 34,000 students from immigrant families, who make up 7.3 percent of elementary and high school students in the entire region. The highest number of immigrant students is in Florence, at nearly 10,700.
Such large figures merit special attention from regional councilors, especially as statistics reveal that one in six of these children drop out of the Tuscan school system in order to enter the workforce. Reports show that many students leave school due to a lack of familiarity with the Tuscan educational system, as well as insufficient fluency with the Italian language. In order to combat this phenomenon, Florence, Arezzo, Livorno and Pistoia, the four Tuscan cities with the highest number of immigrant children, have jointly launched a project aimed at keeping kids in school and out of factories.
As of June 2008, thanks to the ‘Progetto famiglie e ragazzi stranieri’, each province will invest 150 thousand euro to reach the project’s goal of decreasing the immigrant student drop-out rate. Ultimately, the project aims to reduce the disparity between Italians and immigrants by establishing a permanent laboratory where teachers can discover new teaching strategies specifically geared toward foreign learners. Other facets of the project will include efforts to increase parent involvement, after-school programs, and extra-scholastic support.
