Two years later, the controversy is rekindled over a questionnaire from the South Tyrolean Health Authority addressed to schools, which among the various registry questions for the evaluation of the pupil, asks the teacher to indicate the “race”.
The module of the Child Neuropsychiatry service of the Health Compresorio of the city of Bolzano was already used in 2019, when it had also provoked interventions at the parliamentary level. “The form will be revised very shortly”, the health authority had assured at the time after the apologies of the general manager, Florian Zerzer, “for the fact that this term was used in this context”. “We never thought of asking a pupil what race he is. We immediately withdraw all the forms and correct them », he added. Yet after two years that card is still in use.
The question has now been raised by Giuseppe Augello, former inspector of the School Superintendence, head teacher of the Bolzano III Comprehensive Institute. “I find the wording unacceptable, ethically incorrect and out of all logic, clashing with the principles of civil life – said Augello – and I have instructed the teachers of my school to send the modules in question back to the sender”. The man made a report addressed to the superintendent, Vincenzo Gullotta.
At the origin of the error, as already established in 2019, there is a translation error. The module was, in fact, derived from a standard model currently in use in the United States, formulated by the University of Vermont in 2001, where the term “race” is used. This is a term that is now unused in Europe, as it has no scientific value, but is still used in the US. The health authority of Bolzano had in fact specifying that the word had been used “due to a translation error from the original text which is in English and which has been standardized worldwide”.
The promised change, however, did not arrive. Indeed, the term continues to surface also in other questionnaires in the province of Bolzano. The last case dates back to a few days ago, when a patient who had turned to the Sports Medicine Service of the South Tyrolean Healthcare Company found the wording on the certificate of fitness for sporting activity issued by the Sports Medicine Service to patients. Three days later the company announced that it had removed the term, attributing its presence to an error in the software used by the ASL.