In Italy these days there is discussion about the possible postponement of the start of the school year to October 1st, after the request made by the teacher of a Campania institute and by the trade unions to avoid returning to classrooms where temperatures exceed 30°C.
On the one hand, therefore, there are those who support this proposal, on the other there are those who point out that the problem is not so much the calendar, but the schools themselves: over 90% of Italian institutes are in fact without air conditioning systems. Meanwhile, today 7 September, school begins in the autonomous province of Bolzano, which will be followed in the next few days by the other regions, lastly Puglia, on 17 September.
The proposal to postpone the start of schools in Italy to October 1st
The discussion was started by a petition launched at the end of August on Change.org by a teacher from a Campania institute, who asked the Presidency of the Council of Ministers to postpone the return from 15 September (the start date of lessons in various regions, including Campania) to 1 October, defining the conditions in the classroom as “unbearable” in this heat.
Also in Calabria, Emilia-Romagna, Lazio, Sicily and Tuscany, the start of the school year is this year scheduled for Tuesday 15 September 2026; the first to reopen today are the schools of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano (7 September), followed by other regions. Here is the complete calendar for this year.
The unions have moved along the same line: the FLC CGIL, the school federation, has asked to be able to postpone the start of lessons where temperatures in the classroom are too high, recalling Legislative Decree 81 of 2008 on safety in the workplace.
The issue, however, is structural: according to Ministry data, over 9 out of 10 schools are not equipped with air conditioning, and the unions estimate that only 6.45% of buildings (3,966 out of 61,308) are equipped with air conditioners. To adapt all the classrooms, figures in the order of a billion euros would be needed (the teachers’ union CNDDU has proposed a plan of 1.5 billion over three years).
The Ministry of Education and Merit has instead chosen another path: Minister Giuseppe Valditara has allocated 20 million euros for the purchase of cooling devices, excluding changes to the calendar. A position shared by over 72% of teachers in a survey by La Tecnica della Scuola. But this money is far from the billion that would seem necessary.
When does the 2026/2027 school year start in other European countries
In Europe there is no shared system: each country – with specificity also by region or geographical area – determines the start dates, with differences that also concern the duration of the summer holidays and the actual number of school days. Calendars in Italy are not determined at a national level, but are established by local institutions (still taking into account the parameters set by the Ministry of Education) and can change based on the education cycle, with longer rest periods for elementary school students compared to high school students.
There are European countries where school has already started for almost a month, countries where the start is always set for September 1st and countries where the start can be staggered by several weeks, as happens for example in Germany, depending on the Land (the federal state) and then there is Malta, which closes the list every year.
Here are the start dates for the 2026/2027 school year:
- Finland: 6-13 August
- Germany: 10 August-14 September
- Denmark: 10-13 August
- Sweden: 17-19 August
- Netherlands: 17-31 August
- Belgium: 24 August-1 September
- Ireland: late August-early September
- Czech Rep., Estonia, France, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia: 1 September
- Croatia and Romania: 7 September
- Austria and Cyprus: 7-14 September
- Spain: 4-15 September
- Italy: 7-17 September
- Greece: September 11th
- Portugal: 11-21 September
- Bulgaria and Luxembourg: 15 September
- Malta: 28 September
