The last were the high school graduates who still had to start their final theses, la maturita. For the first time since the pandemic, all exams, including the colloquium, were held in attendance again in Italy. All other young people have been able to enjoy their summer holidays for two weeks now. But now everyone is free. The holidays again last a full quarter of a year until mid-September – a period of time for which the pupils and, by the way, the teachers in Italy are widely envied.
The Italian parents, on the other hand, need more compassion. Many families face a care problem because the adults do not have three months off to the same extent. Schools sometimes have offers in their programmes, youth organizations and parishes offer leisure camps. Summer camps are also attractive, but many parents cannot afford them. Incidentally, now is the hour of solidarity in the neighborhood, in which the Italians are masters. The grandparents in particular are urgently needed. Where none of this works out, however, parents give up their jobs over the summer, which is easy in Italy because of the many precarious working conditions, but does not make the problem of these insecure jobs any better. Incidentally, this also affects many teachers who are often not permanently employed and work their way from temporary contract to temporary contract – so much for the envy factor.
That being said, the question arises as to whether such long vacations make pedagogical sense. There is plenty of non-fiction and even more anecdotal evidence. Acquired knowledge is lost, as is social competence. That makes the start in September tedious, unnecessarily lengthening, and too much has to be squeezed into the nine months over the winter. The pressure is heavy on the students as well as on the teachers.
For the locals, too, holidays in Italy often mean: sea and beach. And that leads to a topic that is becoming increasingly important, also in Germany, by the way. Because holidays are getting more and more expensive. The combination of skyrocketing inflation, which is squeezing many families’ budgets, and booming tourist demand after years of the pandemic has pushed prices up for the summer of 2023, especially during school holidays.
The newspaper Avvenire speaks of the “luxury” of the holiday and has deliberately put the word in quotation marks. She cites calculations according to which a week of family beach holidays by the sea for four people (two adults and two children) can cost more than 5000 euros all in all, almost 20 percent more than in the previous year, and it was already significantly more expensive than in 2021.
Tighter family budgets force people to stay longer and find cheaper solutions far into the middle class. You may end up staying just a few days at an agriturismo in Tuscany or southern Italy and then a trip to visit relatives who hopefully have a house near the sea. Can also be beautiful, right?