Meloni Plans New School Rules on Face Coverings and Foreign Students

New Delhi, September 21, 2026 Italy is preparing a new set of education measures centred on integration, language and classroom composition. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has announced plans to prohibit burqas and niqabs in schools, introduce a legal limit on the number of foreign students in each classroom and require some parents of foreign students to learn Italian. Speaking at Fenix, a youth event organised by her Brothers of Italy party in Rome on Sunday, Meloni said the proposed package would soon be presented to the Council of Ministers. "So, a measure is about to reach the Council of Ministers that legally introduces a limit on the number of foreign students per class. A maximum number, clearly. And that's not all. It also introduces an obligation for parents of foreign students with severe integration issues at school to learn Italian and introduces a ban on burqas and niqabs in schools," she said. The government has not yet announced the exact classroom limit. Meloni said the proposals are intended to ensure that people settling in Italy learn the language, understand the country's culture and follow its rules. "For us, anyone who comes to Italy and wants to build their future here must learn our language, know our culture, and respect our rules. It is the only serious way to welcome people," she added. On face coverings, she said students should attend school with their faces uncovered and linked the proposal to gender equality. "Because you go to school with an uncovered face and because in Italy, no one, in the name of a real or presumed tradition, can decide that a young woman must hide herself. Gender equality is non-negotiable -- not on our streets, and not in our schools," she said. The proposed changes come as around 930,000 students without Italian citizenship are enrolled in Italian schools, according to Fondazione ISMU, representing about 11.6 per cent of the country's total school population. Meloni also announced changes to medical-school admissions, saying the government had scrapped the multiple-choice entrance test. "And then university -- that transition where so many young people choose what they want to be for the years to come. Here too, we inherited a system that claimed in words to guarantee opportunity for everyone but in practice left some behind. We have unseated some of these mechanisms as well, starting with one of the biggest symbols of the senseless injustices created by left-wing governments: the multiple-choice entrance test for medical school. We scrapped this infernal mechanism because if you want to play the lottery, you buy a New Year's ticket—you don't enrol in university," she stated. The proposals are now expected to move to the Council of Ministers, where their final provisions will be considered. The government's planned package brings together rules on foreign-student numbers, language requirements for certain parents and face coverings as part of its wider approach to integration within Italy's education system.