Giorgia Meloni has announced tough changes to Italian schools. A ban on burqas and niqabs (ed. traditional face coverings), a cap on the number of foreign pupils in each class, and a requirement for parents of children who struggle with integration to learn Italian.
The prime minister made the announcement on Sunday, 20 September 2026, at a congress of the youth wing of the Brothers of Italy party (Fenix / Gioventu Nazionale) in Rome. The proposal is to go before the Council of Ministers. Parliament’s approval will then be needed.
What exactly did she announce?
Three points:
- A cap on foreign pupils in a class – it is to be written into law as a maximum number.
- A requirement to learn Italian for parents of foreign pupils who have serious difficulties fitting into school.
- A ban on burqas and niqabs in schools. Pupils are to attend with their faces uncovered.
Meloni has not yet given a specific percentage for the cap. In Italy, an unwritten rule dating from 2010 has long set a threshold of 30 percent foreign pupils. Now the government wants to turn this into a firm statutory norm.
What she said directly
„In Italy, no one, in the name of real or alleged tradition, may decide that a young woman must hide.
Equality between men and women is not up for negotiation. It is not up for negotiation on our streets, and it is not up for negotiation in our schools”.
She added that if there is one child in a class who does not understand Italian, it is still possible to bring them in. When there are many such children or they make up the majority – that is no longer integration, but neglect.
Italian children must not feel like a minority in their own class. She called calling this integration a convenient lie told by people who moralise from salons while sending their own children where this problem does not exist.
For now this is an announcement, not a finished law. But the direction is clear: fewer hidden faces in classrooms, fewer classes in which Italians are in the corner – while immigrants culturally foreign take over the majority.
