Many precarious secondary school teachers are spending the summer studying for the oral exam of the competition. Complaints, as always, are not lacking, first of all for the lack of clarity regarding the programs, and then for the absurdity of certain questions (and also for the tendency of the teaching staff to complain in general about anything). Observing the study materials, the subjects to know, and the methods of the exam, however, another theme re-emerges, very difficult to address: that of equal economic treatment reserved in the school for teachers of different subjects.

There is a notable disproportion between the competition classes, because some qualify for teaching more than one subject, such as A-12 (Italian, history and geography) or A-50 (natural sciences, chemistry and biology), while others, such as art or French, present a much smaller amount of subjects to study. Nobody ever talks about it, and so one gets the idea that, more or less, preparing for the competition is equally difficult for everyone; but the truth is that some candidates have to memorize practically all of human knowledge, while others don’t.

The disproportion is also evident at school

Obviously, each teacher has a degree in the subjects of his/her competence, so it is assumed that he/she has studied everything he/she needs to take the exam and then teach (this is not the case, but we will not deal with that now); but in a test in which everything is substantially reduced to a single question – the disciplinary one – the difference in difficulty between those who have to review just one subject and those who have to review three is evident.

We do not want to create a hierarchy of subjects here, which already exists and is also indicated by the number of school hours; but to highlight a fact that is not easy to discuss: teachers of some subjects work more than others. At school it is the same thing: an Italian teacher, both in middle school and high school, has many more things to do than many others, and yet earns the same salary. Many things to do means many hours spent working at home, to prepare and correct not only tests but also writing exercises. We even have a class of teachers paid to teach a subject that is not even a subject, that does not make up the average and that is not mandatory; and they are paid the same as those who teach physics.

Of course, my speech is valid in the case of teachers who actually work. Of course, being qualified for a competition class is no guarantee of professionalism, and we have all experienced at least once in our lives incompetent, lazy and parasitic teachers, who have continued to serenely take their salary until retirement. But here, of course, another thorny issue comes into play, much more difficult: the control of the teacher’s performance and his or her possible removal from the school in the case of disappointing results, as normally happens for any employee who does not do what he or she is paid to do.

It is difficult to suggest similar changes in Italian schools.

In general, criticizing school is a daily sport in Italy, but discussing the privileges of the teaching profession and certain absurdities that we take as normal is almost impossible. We are used to thinking of school as that place where it is very hard to get in, but once you do, you have won: you will stay there forever, no matter the quality of the work done. Instead, it is precisely this idea that must be eradicated, because it gives rise to laxity and legitimises it, among other things to the detriment of all those teachers who, despite not being paid adequately, do their job. If we entered the perspective of teaching as any other job, it would not be strange at all that those who have more work to do at home are paid more, and those who teach less demanding subjects (from the point of view of preparing lessons and tests, and correcting them) earn less.

But the day when we will be ready for this discussion is certainly not close to coming: mainly, school today is the source of an enormous trade in useless books, equally useless training credits, miserable paid courses to acquire a point in the rankings, and stupid notions to be recited by heart in order to demonstrate that one is inclusive. And, judging from the noise of the protests, it seems that teachers are fine with it.