Italy will become the first country in the world to have climate change lessons made compulsory in schools. Italy Education Minister Lorenzo Fioramonti has declared that all schools in the country will have almost an hour every week to the study of climate change from next academic year.
He said that the ministry was being transformed to make climate change and sustainability the core of education model. As part of sustainability development, he said that other subjects such as physics, geography and mathematics would also be taught.
A professor by profession, Fioramonti was quoted in the media as saying that he wants to make Italian system of education the first such system to make education and environment at the core of all learning in schools.
He was in the news recently for his environment announcements and directions when he asked school children to skip class and join the climate change protests. He has been a target of the Opposition for many of the policies he had evolved. He was controversial when he had declared that Gross Domestic Product should not be used to measure a country. He was also in the eye of controversy when he ordered to remove all crucifixes from the class rooms for creating an environment for even the non- Christian students.