Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

Milan, May 15 2021 – After the success and appreciation received last year, the funding aimed at first cycle schools is renewed for the creation of new educational spaces that adhere to targeted pedagogical projects. The Municipality of Milan has in fact allocated, through a council resolution, 500 thousand euros to be assigned to primary and lower secondary schools that will present projects to design new environments for teaching.   
Last year, the Administration signed the Milan Manifesto which, together with the Regional School Office, Indire and Assodidattica, aims to implement the innovation paths that take the form of setting up new educational spaces. Through these resources, support for innovation becomes concrete, demonstrating the fact that educational experimentation cannot ignore, indeed must start from, the revolution of school spaces. Thanks to the 2020 appropriations, the proposals of 14 schools, belonging to 12 comprehensive schools, have been financed and have already been implemented, which concerned the redesign of classrooms, laboratories and outdoor spaces and the re-functionalization of some connecting spaces, such as atriums and corridors. 

“Already last year – declares Education Councilor Laura Galimberti – the funds made available by the Municipality gave many schools the opportunity to restart and innovate after a prolonged period of closure and at a time when it was necessary to rethink spaces to adapt to new ways of use. The schools welcomed this opportunity with great enthusiasm and this pushed us to relaunch to continue on a path that sees the spaces increasingly reflecting pedagogical objectives and new methods for teaching and in which the Administration wants to be a participant and guide, working together to other institutions - Government first and foremost - to invest in building the school of the future".  
The schools that have obtained funding are as follows: the primary schools in via Pescarenico, Console Marcello, Monte Velino, Wolf Ferrari, via Mac Mahon, via Ruffini, piazza Sicilia, via Stefanardo, via De Nicola and the lower secondary schools in via Tosi, via Martinengo, via dei Guarnieri, via Della Giustizia, via Russo.   

The funds will be assigned to the individual school autonomy through a notice that will be published in the coming weeks. Each school autonomy will be able to compete with one or two of its complexes by presenting proposals for the renewal of one or more environments linked to an educational experimentation to be implemented in the spaces object of the intervention, which can be designed in synergy with companies in the sector, on the basis of the collaboration started with the Milan Manifesto.  
  
With a further resolution of the Council, the Administration finally approved the guidelines for the awarding, through a public tender, of the ordinary supply of school furniture and other equipment for city schools and educational services. To provide for the needs of approximately 550 structures - including nurseries, nursery schools, state primary and lower secondary schools, civic schools and holiday homes - which host over 100.000 pupils, the Municipality has allocated over 12,2 million euros which they will be assigned on the basis of four tender lots.  
The supply of furniture is necessary in order to ensure the replacement of old furniture, the opening of new sections and the preparation and adaptation of school gymnasiums to ensure educational activities.   
“Thanks to a positive collaboration between departments – concludes councilor Galimberti – we have worked to provide for the needs of schools, but also to introduce new elements in the traditional specifications for the supply of furnishings, focusing on greater ergonomics, on support for innovation of learning environments, for example with desks of different shapes that lend themselves to changing aggregation patterns, and on the purchase of furnishings - such as small vegetable garden boxes - also for courtyards and external gardens, which, especially in this particular moment in which outdoor activity must be favoured, must be understood as an extension of the classroom for teaching activities".

Photo gallery