Rome Caps Foreign Pupils as Molise's Classrooms Empty

Italy's ministers have agreed on measures to ban the burqa and niqab in schools and to cap the number of foreign pupils in each class, according to the BBC. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni described the package as "common-sense tools that do not divide but really help to integrate".

The New York Times reported that Meloni said the goal was to better integrate children who do not speak Italian, while critics accused her of trying to appease anti-immigrant sentiment. The Local Italy, examining the same plan, asked what was really driving the clampdown, noting the pledge was made over the weekend.

In Molise the arithmetic of the classroom runs the other way. The region has roughly 289,000 residents and a birth rate that has been falling for years, and its schools have been closing or merging for lack of pupils, not for an excess of them.