School Starts With Algorithm’s “Russian Roulette”: What Happens in Class

Uncovered classes, reduced hours, teachers taking turns to plug the gaps. School is starting all over Italy and the picture is already complicated enough. To make things worse, there is also a ministerial algorithm that, even when it doesn’t make a mistake in calculating the scores, often doesn’t include all the available teaching positions in the first bulletins. The result? A paradox: High-scoring teachers lose their jobsand the schools – already struggling – risk not even being able to guarantee the regular start of lessons. Lucia Donat Cattin, of the national executive of Usb Scuola, denounces the situation. “Every precarious worker compiles a list of preferences without having any idea of ​​the positions actually available. And if, on your turn, the algorithm does not find a chair corresponding to your preferences, you are considered to have given up. Result? No assignment for the entire year”. It’s like playing Russian roulette: a small mistake is enough to see the school year go up in smoke.

And it doesn’t end there. Further complicating the situation is the constant reshuffling of the rankings.. “The available chairs are often published at the last minute – continues Donat Cattin – and those with high scores can find themselves without a job, because the right positions emerge too late, weeks later”. The climate is electric: there are those who, with 150 points in the ranking, have been overtaken by colleagues with just 15 points, and those who threaten to call the police to protest.

Manuela Calza, national secretary of Flc Cgil, looks beyond and underlines that the algorithm is only the tip of the iceberg: “The real problem is precariousness, and it does not only concern teachers, but has direct repercussions on students”. A quarter of the workforce is precarious. Schools, without alternatives, start the year with reduced hours. “We will start with 200,000 fixed-term positions – concludes Calza – and we still don’t know how many have actually been assigned”.