Italy bans burqas in schools, caps pupils weak in Italian

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's cabinet adopted a decree law Thursday banning burqas and niqabs in schools and setting a 30% class cap on students who do not have adequate Italian-language skills.

Meloni said the measure would provide more tools for learning Italian and impose the face-covering ban. Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara said poor language proficiency hinders education.

If a child has serious difficulty integrating at school, social services will be called and parents will have to attend free Italian lessons. Parents who do not comply can be fined up to €1,000 ($1,140).

Valditara said there were 34,000 school classes in Italy in which more than 30% of students are foreign. He said most would not be affected by the new law because it targets new arrivals rather than children born in Italy or those who attended kindergarten.

Italy has had a 30% class limit on foreign students since a 2010 ministerial memorandum, but the limit was flexible and could vary based on students' Italian-language ability.

Save the Children warned that forcing children to change schools or enroll away from peers because of nationality or limited Italian would create "first-class" and "second-class" students. Opposition leader Elly Schlein accused the government of a "new witch hunt at the expense of children."

Meloni said after the cabinet meeting that the burqa ban was "a matter of security" and argued that women or girls forced to cover their faces were being denied fundamental rights.

Migration and integration are major campaign issues in Italy ahead of next year's general election.