Rome, 28 March 2022 – “A massacre”. Two weeks after the start of the ordinary competition for lower and upper secondary school, which will end on 13 April, the judgment is unanimous. Controversies arise from the unions to the world of politics on ‘computer based’ tests which, in some competition classes, have seen 90% of the participants failed. Banned in July 2020 and the competition for thehiring 33 thousand teachers had ignited the hopes of the approx 500 thousand candidates. But something in the selection mechanism got stuck transforming the proof – according to the participants’ testimonies – into a ‘TV quiz’ where the logic of a sterile notion has prevailed over the evaluation of skills. All seasoned with errors both in the manner of conducting the competition and in the formulation of the questions.
There are commissions – says the Anief union – which registered zero admissions and very many no more than 5%. One of the best performances was achieved in Puglia, where a quarter of the participants passed the test for the English competition class (AB24 and AB25). Also in Puglia, the test of 21 and 22 March for the A022 class (Italian, History, Geography in lower secondary school), was passed only by 87 candidates out of 2,300 candidates (just 3.7%). “It is shameful that in Italy the category of first and second grade secondary school teachers is selected with multiple choice quizzes notional, ambiguous, in some cases incorrect and above all diametrically distant from the ministerial programs that the Italian school brings forward within the teaching freedom of each teacher. The school and culture, which are the pillar of a civil society, need teachers who are selected not only on the basis of theoretical knowledge, skills and competences, but above all on the basis of individual and psycho-aptitude capacities to transmit knowledge “. the outburst of Gabriella A., 38, from 5 precarious teacher of ‘Technology and Informatics’ in a Roman middle school.
“I have not gone through two mistakes too many. After two years of waiting – says the teacher – we were warned only a couple of weeks before the start of the tests. There was no prior publication of the battery of quizzes from which the 50 questions would have been extracted and there were no bibliographic or website references to prepare for the test “. The main problem – explains the teacher – is that” it is not the reference framework for the evaluation of the written test was respected. “An inconsistency that is at the basis of the appeal announced by the unions. For each class of competition, the ministry had provided a scheme with the ‘thematic nuclei’ envisaged in the test and the relative number of questions, as well as 5 IT and 5 English questions.
To pass the test it was necessary correctly answer 35 of the 50 questions reaching a score of 70 (2 points per question). The quiz that the candidates faced, however, did not correspond to what was described in the announcement. Flc CGIL asked for a meeting with the Minister of Education Patrizio Bianchi to “discuss a reform of recruitment that puts incoming training at the center with qualifying courses for precarious workers with three years of service”. A proposal comes from the principals: for the president of the PNA, Antonello Giannelli, the evaluation of teachers should be entrusted to schools.