Scuola Italiana d'Ambasciata di Pechino

Funding an Italian school in Beijing is an ambitious and important project for the image of Italy, because it is not only a service for Italian people living abroad, but also a potential tool for cultural exchange and dialogue between Italy and China, and between Italy and the world.

The project has been inspired and initiated by the collaboration with Reggio Children, a model example of Italian pedagogy for many schools around the world. The main reason behind the choice to collaborate with Reggio Children is the purpose to offer an educational approach that aims at enhancing the liveliness of the child, his expressions skills, his self-awareness and his abilities to interact with people around him and the surrounding environment.

Our idea of school finds its roots in the most important pedagogic experience of Italian tradition, with attention on psychology, neuroscience, the newest educational methods. We aim to realize the principles of United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, to offer children opportunities to have studying experience, to enjoy cultural exchanges that allow them to fully and actively integrate themselves in the society, and above all, to enjoy a multicultural and intercultural life. It is not only a matter of choosing appropriate contents of programmes, and of imposing a strict, clear and sustainable organization, but also of creating an educational system that aims at spreading the cultural message through the Italian school, a message based on flexibility of the offer and on the adaptation to environmental demands.

The new topics introduced in the educational system have, indeed, strong connotations: the main focus is the educational offer for the person, as a citizen. This educational system excludes any nationalist ideas, in favour of important values related to cultural identity, national origins and linguistic identification. A multicultural environment is an environment of knowledge, of dialogue and interaction, of experiences exchange, of needs and common life. The necessity of forming an individual belonging to a multicultural society has created a different concept of citizen, who knows and spreads his/her own linguistic and cultural identity, and at the same time he/she is able to communicate with people from different countries, respecting their languages and customs, increasing different aspects of self-awareness.

This new approach to education establishes a complicated path for an individual, yet full of amazing things and educational opportunities. The Italian School in Beijing reflects these values in different social environments, and investing on such institution means giving a new signal of the Italian peculiarity.