THEn these days Italy is caught in a grip of heat that is causing record temperatureswith the mercury well above thirty-five degrees in many cities. This tropical heat wave which is spreading across the entire peninsula and which has repercussions on everyday life, becomes particularly difficult to manage inside school classroomstransforming the last efforts of students and teachers, right now with just ten days left until the end of lessons, into a real test of resistance.
Record abnormal heat: school classroom alarm, impact on learning
Precisely on this issue, the OECD, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, he published a dossier to study how rising temperatures influence school life. Experts clearly explain that studying in an environment that is too hot is not only tiring, but directly damages students’ ability to concentrate and perform. In some cases, the excessive heat even forces lessons to be suspended. The problem, however, is that according to forecasts for 2050, the days of heat spent on the benches will increase everywhere.
The calendar paradox and Italian fragility
Even in Italy, obviously, where the issue is more relevant than ever given the state of school buildings. While we await the closure of the school, in fact, expected in the first half of June depending on the region, one of the debates that becomes increasingly heated is the need to change the school calendar. An idea often proposed to encourage tourism or to help working parents, but which today becomes especially urgent to protect the health of children and teenagers.
Between crumbling structures and absent investments, the heat waves expose the system’s inability to protect the right to education. (Getty Images)
X-ray of an unprepared building stock
The real obstacle, however, remains the state of the school facilities. Official data says that approximately 89 percent of Italian schools do not have an air conditioning system. This is almost all of the over thirty-nine thousand structures registered at a national level. And even where there are air conditioners, they often only work in the offices of the presidency or in the secretariat, leaving the vast majority of daily teaching classroomswhere the kids spend many hours queuing for lessons, completely unprotected and exposed to the grip of the sultry heat.
The countermeasures between costs and planning
Finding a way out is not easy and presents the institutions with a choice. On the one hand, install cooling systems in over thirty-nine thousand schoolsa huge investment. On the other, change holiday and lesson periodsa route that may seem cheaper and faster, but which must be carefully planned to avoid losing important lesson hours.
An emergency that requires structural responses
In essence, faced with a climate that has radically changed and which already at the end of May brings temperatures that were once unthinkable even in August, the problem of sultriness in classrooms can no longer be treated as a temporary emergencybut requires urgent structural interventions so that the school remains a welcoming and safe place.
With exams just around the corner, this situation can no longer be ignored but requires concrete and immediate interventionscapable of guaranteeing students and teachers the minimum environmental conditions to be able to carry out teaching activities and end-of-year tests in complete safety.
