(ANSA) – ROME, 1 FEB – Students including high school students in most parts of Italy can finally return to class on Monday.

Italian high schools are meant to reopen after the Christmas holidays, after distance learning was used in the last part of 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions.

But only a handful of districts actually reopened their secondary schools on schedule on January 11, due to concerns about fueling the spread of COVID, with other regions imposing delays of varying lengths.

On Monday about eight million students were in school after Sardinia, Calabria, Puglia, Basilicata, Veneto, Campania and Friuli Venezia Giulia reopened their secondary schools.

Those eight million include about 2.5 million high school students, who physically attend classes for 50-75% of their schedule, and the rest is done through distance learning.

Middle school pupils in Sicily, however, would not return to class for another week.

Education Minister Lucia Azzolina, who has pressed for schools in the country to reopen at all levels, said concerns that having older students return to class would lead to an increase in transmission proved baseless.

“High school kids are completing their return to school,” said Azzolina.

The lower levels of the school system remain open and some five million male and female students never have to move away from their classrooms.

“Middle school, on the other hand, is continued with students who attend physically gradually.

“Transmission remains stable in areas that were opened first.

“This is something that entertains us, but we have to keep our level of attention very, very high.” (ANSA).