Parents and teachers donned black on the first day of the school year Monday to protest planned cuts to Italy's elementary schools.
Parents and teachers across Italy put on black arm bands to protest Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini's decision to return to a system where kids have a single teacher for all subjects.
Teachers at three schools in Florence went further, welcoming their young charges back from the summer break dressed completely in black.
''No to the cuts, no to a single teacher,'' read the placards they waved.
In Rome, where 70 schools took part in the protest, teachers and parents said they were determined to fight Gelmini's plan together.
''We're collecting signatures for a petition,'' said a father at the Iqbal Masih elementary school.
''The return to the single teacher is scandalous, unacceptable,'' he said.
A teacher at the same school, Patrizia Zucchetta, said ''we're going to have a sit-in. We'll sleep here with some parents''.
''We'll do all we can against these plans,'' Zucchetta said.
''A single teacher means putting kids back in an anachronistic school. It will no longer be possible to give computer lessons or ceramics courses, for instance''.
Gelmini reacted by saying it was ''disgraceful to use children for protests that are purely political''.
''The first day of school should be a party, a time of joy, not an opportunity to terrorise them,'' she said.
''The work of disinformation and alarmism of those defending the status quo appears to have no limits,'' she said.
Government MPs rallied round Gelmini and described the teachers' protest as ''unacceptable'' and ''irresponsible''.
Silvana Mura of the centre-left opposition IDV party shot back: ''It's not a question of teachers using children but a government that can't stand any form of dissent''.
''Teachers are perfectly entitled to protest a reform that puts 200,000 supply teachers on the streets,'' Mura said, voicing the hope that there would not be any ''retaliatory'' action taken against the teachers who wore black Monday.
Gelmini claims the job cuts will enable her to raise salaries for Italy's teachers who are among the lowest paid in Europe.
She has said she would like to see her reforms approved in time for the next school year.
As well as bringing back the single-teacher system for primary schools, Gelmini envisions changes at secondary school too, including a return to marking students for behaviour in a bid to fight bullying.
High-school students protested in front of parliament Monday, wearing donkey's ears and claiming the minister wanted a 'Jurassic School'.
