From September 1st, Italian schools apply the Indicazioni replacing those from 2012
With the 2026/2027 school year, the new national curriculum guidelines (Indicazioni nazionali) for pre-school and the first cycle come into force, adopted by ministerial decree; in upper secondary schools, the reform of technical institutes begins, limited to first-year classes.
The first day of September marks an administrative turning point for the Italian school system: pre-schools, primary schools and lower secondary schools adopt from this year the new national guidelines (Indicazioni nazionali) provided for by ministerial decree 221/2025, which replace the text in force since 2012. This is reported by sapere.virgilio.it, which references the decree, and by Tecnica della Scuola.
What changes on paper
The national guidelines are not a lesson-by-lesson programme: they define the framework within which each school builds its own teaching. The new text redefines three elements: the expected competencies at the end of each cycle, the learning objectives and the methodological guidelines. The substantive changes indicated by the sources concern greater space for STEM subjects, digital citizenship and the critical use of technology.
The change does not take place everywhere at the same time. For upper secondary schools, the new national guidelines dedicated to licei (academic-track high schools) are expected starting from the 2027/2028 school year: this year, upper secondary schools instead see the launch of the reform of technical institutes, initially applied only to first-year classes. This is a gradual approach that produces, for at least one year, the coexistence of different systems within the same technical institute: first-year classes under the reform, other classes under the previous arrangement.
The plan was presented by the Minister of Education and Merit Giuseppe Valditara at the Rimini Meeting in the days immediately preceding the start of the school year, as reported by Orizzonte Insegnanti.
Staff authorised in August
On the staffing front, the framework for hiring for the year beginning was set by the Council of Ministers. At the meeting on August 4, 2026 at Palazzo Chigi, the government authorised 46,642 permanent hires, of which 10,810 concern support teachers. The same measure authorised hires of school principals, education staff, religion teachers and ATA (administrative, technical and auxiliary) staff. The figures are contained in press release of the Council of Ministers no. 185 published on governo.it.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Permanent hires authorised | 46,642 |
| of which support teachers | 10,810 |
| Regulation introducing the new guidelines | ministerial decree 221/2025 |
| Text replaced | 2012 national guidelines |
| Licei | new guidelines expected from 2027/2028 |
What we don’t know
The available sources describe the architecture of the change, not its detail subject by subject: it cannot be reconstructed from here which learning objectives have been modified in each subject, nor what the timeline for teacher training on the new guidelines is. The sources also do not report the size of the population involved. On the staffing front, the number authorised by the Council of Ministers is a ceiling: the sources do not report how many hires had actually been finalised by September 1st, nor their distribution across regions and school levels.
One element, however, is already fixed on the calendar: those starting today under the new framework belong to the first cycle, while students entering liceo this year will complete their first year under the guidelines of the previous framework.
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