School reforms set off angry protests across Italy

School reforms set off angry protests across Italy
Rome - 29.Oct.2008: Nazi-Fascist Scums Attack Against Students

By ALESSANDRA RIZZO
Associated Press Writer
ROME (AP) - Tens of thousands of students, teachers and other school workers went on strike Thursday and marched through the streets of Rome to protest government-backed changes to Italy's school system.
The demonstration was held a day after the reforms were approved by parliament. They include flunking pupils for bad conduct, giving elementary students the same teacher for all five grades and requiring students to wear uniform smocks.
Critics say the reforms will reduce educational standards across Italy, with the one-teacher rule also causing layoffs.
Students have been staging protests for days against the school reforms and other changes proposed by Premier Silvio Berlusconi's government to the education system.
Thursday's one-day strike called by unions closed elementary, middle and high schools across Italy, and thousands of people traveled to Rome by bus or train to join the demonstration. Police in riot gear were on hand in a central Rome piazza where the demonstrators gathered, waved flags and chanted slogans.
A winding line of people snarled traffic across the capital.
Similar demonstrations were held in other cities.
In Milan, students went outside the Stock Exchange and started shouting that they don't want to be the ones paying for the financial crisis, news reports said.
In Florence 100 students briefly occupied some tracks at a railway station, causing trains to be rerouted.
"We are so many people, and if we can't change anything then it means this is a form of dictatorship," said Lara Nori, 17, a high school student from near Rome.
"These are real needs, questions that concern the future and uncertainties of our youths," Guglielmo Epifani, the leader of the country's largest union, CGIL, said at the Rome demonstration. "This battle will go on."


The far-right “Blocco Studentesco” (linked to Fiamma Tricolore/Forza Nuova) have been attacking left-wing students. This culminated in an attack by the far-right during a demonstration at Piazza Navone, Rome this morning - check out this video:

http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=tfns4qyNSnk