Italy may be facing recession, but for Siggi, a textile firm near Civenza in the north-east of the country, 2009 offers the promise of unprecedented growth. Siggi is the biggest producer of grembiuli or school smocks. Once universal in Italian primary schools, they were becoming as outdated as ink-wells. But in July the education minister Mariastella Gelmini, backed the reintroduction of grembiuli to combat brand and class-consciousness among school children. Siggi’s output this year has almost sold out and its chairman Gino Marta says that “next year could see an out-and-out boom”.

The decision on whether pupils should wear the grembiule has been left to head teachers. It does not figure in either of the two education Bills that have been introduced by Ms. Gelmini. But it has become a symbol of her efforts to shake up Italian education. Her critics argue that these are a vain attempt to turn back the clock; her supporters see them as a necessary first step to a more equitable, efficient system.

On October 30, the opposition she has aroused culminated in a one-day teachers’ strike. The union’s main complaint is a programme of cuts aimed at saving almost €8 billion (Rs.50,400 crore). It includes the loss by natural wastage of 87,000 teachers’ jobs over the three academic years to 2012, and the return to a system in which just one teacher is allotted to each year of elementary school.

If this is all the reforms do, they could prove as disastrous as union and opposition leaders predict (international studies find primary schools are the only part of Italy’s education that does well). But it is also planned that 30 percent of the money saved will be reinvested in schools. Gelmini’s supporters hope that she will use it to redress the crippling imbalances in education, which is one of Italy’s biggest structural economic weaknesses.

One problem is “lots of badly paid teachers”, says Roger Abravanel, author of a recent book on meritocracy. “The number of teachers per 100 students is one of the highest in the OECD.” Education, particularly in the south has often been abused by politicians for patronage and job creation. This may explain why despite studying for longer and in smaller classes, Italian secondary pupils do badly in international comparisons. “The north is around the OECD average but the south (of Italy) is on a par with Uruguay and Thailand,” says Abravanel.

Giacomo Vaciago, an economics professor at the Catholic University of Milan, says that “although for the time being the debate is about cuts, the big problem is quality which is random.”

Presenting the latest reforms alongside Gelmini, Italy’s prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi promised that by 2012 the best teachers would be getting a €7,000 (Rs.4.4 lakh) bonus. But Vaciago is unconvinced by the plans. “The present government is making cuts and hoping that the quality comes through as a result. There is no obvious guarantee it will,” he comments.

(Excerpted and adapted from The Economist)