The minister contacted the president of the eighth Municipality of Naples, Apostolos Paipais, which had denied the existence of an “apartment school” on its territory and had stigmatized the use of the name of Scampia “as if it were absolute evil”.
Paipais was contacted earlier this morning by the undersecretary Peppe De Cristofaro, then from Azzolina herself: “She told me that she was sorry for what happened and she apologized for the mistake – says the president of the municipality – I explained to her that the apologies should be addressed to the whole educating community. It is a slip so many school leaders and teachers who contacted me, thanking me for my position. So I wanted to turn the situation upside down and I invited her, together with Undersecretary De Cristofaro, to come here to meet our excellences, our school leaders and see the process of change in Scampia but not only. The minister has accepted the invitation “.
Paipais took the opportunity to make a proposal to the government: “As a municipality I do not have many powers, but I can act as a bridge for the territory. We must not only listen but carry on investments. Like the minister, even companies do not know that Scampia there are excellences, I asked Azzolina to create a pole for the redemption of Naples, a model to bring together supply and demand “.
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The invitation of the municipality
“With regard to the controversies aroused by an unfortunate example of the minister, one cannot fail to recall the national and regional school registry: a source from which it can be deduced without fear of denial that beyond stereotypes, neither Scampia nor numerous other neighborhoods populous of the Neapolitan suburbs have “schools in apartments”. The Councilor for Education of the Municipality of Naples, Annamaria Palmieri, comments the minister’s mess Lucia Azzolina that yesterday, in a press conference with the premier Giuseppe Conte, speaking of Naples and Scampia, he referred to a “school in an apartment” and undertook with the president to offer new possibilities and new spaces to the children of the Neapolitan suburbs. But the case of the “school in an apartment” was denied by the seventh municipality and the ministry retracted in the evening.
Today the councilor intervenes in the controversy, inviting the minister “to inaugurate the school year in Naples, so as to personally visit our beautiful schools, in Scampia as in other neighborhoods”. It is not enough. “The theme that we have posed as local authorities – adds Palmieri – does not concern the nature of the structures but the building adaptation measures necessary for the spacing and the conquest of spaces suitable for the implementation of health prevention measures such as the spacing. Sorry that after many interlocutions still this is not clear, we hope it will become soon. “
The councilor then adds: “The wealth of the Neapolitan school building heritage sees a great variety of situations, with schools ranging from the late nineteenth century to the eighties as the time of construction, and only residual situations of schools in private construction, which can be counted on fingers of one hand. ”
Of the more than 400 school complexes in the city of Naples that were originally born as schools, “many are already invested in safety adjustment works financed by local authorities and European funds – he concludes – Of course, there remain strong difficulties of ordinary maintenance related to the strangulation of the budgets of local authorities, to which are added today extraordinary needs related to emergency covid, which have been widely reported to the government through Anci and Upi. “
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