This choice was made to solve the serious problem of mass illiteracy at that time in Italy.5 Compared with the major European countries, Italy’s primary schools still receive more public funding than those in France or Spain, and are almost on a par with Germany’s schools.
Reforms are needed, in fact long overdue, to improve their functioning in order to increase their legitimacy and safeguard their role in the future. It is easier to reform the existing institutions than to dismiss them and try to build new ones. By definition, however, multilateralism cannot be preserved by the goodwill of one side alone.