10:24
Language schools, a thousand jobs at risk
“The provisions on economic support for activities that have been stopped due to the anti-Covid measures provided for by the Prime Minister’s Decree of 24 October totally neglect the sector of language training in Italy, and in particular the sector of the organization of language stays in Italy”. This is complained by Asils, an association of schools of Italian as a second language. “The decree even contains a discriminatory element in that companies with the ATECO code 855209 (Other Cultural Training) are introduced among the beneficiaries of the refreshment, but not those with the ATECO code 855930 (Schools and Language Courses). This is a serious omission as the DPCM philosophy is to offer a wider refreshment to categories in extreme distress (accommodation facilities, travel agencies, tour operators, guides, taxi drivers, other tourism services, etc.). All the schools of Italian for foreigners present in our country are among the companies that have had turnover losses between 75% and 95% of turnover. Although the sector is currently “open”, in fact it is closed because, operating only with foreign customers, there are no students and distance learning is not a viable alternative “, adds the association. “Our sector has been on its knees since February – declares the president of ASILS, Wolfango Poggi – first due to the closure of our schools by decree and, after the reopening, due to the almost total absence of customers, due to the absence of many flights and the ban on entering Italy for tourism aimed at non-European citizens, which represent the prevalence in our schools (United States, Japan, Russia, Brazil, China). The European ‘market’ did not give us much breathing space since the governments of many European countries advised against, and sometimes forbade, going to Italy due to the epidemiological risk. The resurgence of the pandemic in recent days has effectively put an end to our activities which, not being able to make use of an “internal market”, find themselves in a situation of absolute financial emergency that undermines the economic resistance of our companies. To date, if we limit ourselves to ASILS schools alone, over 1,000 jobs are at risk. Although numerous exponents of the ministries of our competence (MIUR, MIBACT) have been solicited, no one has taken on a sector that in 2019 was worth 100 million euros “.
–
