European Day of Parents and School celebrated in Italy

The European Day was celebrated on 1 February this year. The initiative, originating from the European Parents Association (EPA), is supported by the Italian National Forum of the most representative Parents Associations (FoNAGS ), the Italian Ministry of Education and Regional Education Office of Lombardy. EPA member A.Ge Parents Association as a member of FoNAGS was part of the celebrations.
The member associations of FoNAGS together encourage the exchange of information and cooperation between parents and schools. The importance of family involvement is especially highlighted in the fields of job orientation, citizenship education, environmental education as it contributes to a continuing qualification of the educational services so that “every student in the school can find the conditions to enhance their skills and realize their life plan."
The European day of parents and schools has taken place every year since 2002, with the aim to encourage shared responsibility of parents and schools in education through the promoting best practices of various Italian schools when applying legal regulations regarding cooperation with parents. This year there were some teacher participating in the event as well as about 200 parents half of whom parents of children aged 3 to 14 and the other half with 14+ children.
The representative of the Region of Lombardy, Paul Formigoni was telling participants about the region’s plans to modernize schools in line with the ET2020 goals aiming at changing schools for preventing early school leaving, job orientation and the use of new technologies. Representative of the Municipaliy of Milan, Francesco Cappelli reinforced also emphasizing the importance of developing critical thinking in our children, the value of integration and the wish to make schools an open space for the community. Dr. Gisella Lange, Technical Inspector of foreign languages ​​MIUR was telling participants about the implications of European education and training policy trends and grant policies.
Headmaster Prof. Giorgio Galanti summarized his decades of experience in some schools in Milan indicating lights and shadows on the way of co-responsibility and encouraged parents to pay more attention to research in this field done by the European Research Network on Parents in Education, ERNAPE the partner of EPA. He also highlighted the importance of teacher training for involvement to eliminate the resistance of schools. He also noted the low participation of Italian parents in schools compared to the rest of Europe.
The other important topic of the day was addiction especially gambling which is a serious problem in Italy. The relation of this issue to education for responsible media usage, especially watching TV was also raised.

summary by Sabina Greco A.Ge

more information: www.forumgenitorilombardia.it