In 2020 there was a constant increase of Italian teachers registered in the eTwinning European platform, about +15% over 2019 (12,713 new registered users).

In particular, during March 2020, eTwinning saw a sharp increase of registrations in our country with 2,393 new registered teachers against 705 in the same period of 2019: that is a 300% increase.

The exponential growth registered in the first part of 2020 is linked to the initiative “SOS distance teaching”, launched by the Indire’s national Unit eTwinning in support of the teachers involved in distance teaching in order to face up to school closures. In spite of the health emergency which effected a large part of the past school year, Italian schools confirmed to rank amongst the first, as far as participation, results and recognitions within the largest community of Italian teachers, were concerned.

Italy is currently second only to Turkey among the 43 participating countries for the number of registered teachers, with a total of 91,658 teachers (more than 10% of the approximately 890,000 in total). In 2020, the most active regions in terms of participation were Piedmont (2100 new registered teachers), Campania and Lombardy.

The data also show a positive trend with respect to new collaboration projects, which exceeded 3,500 for the fourth year in a row. In 2020, despite the closure of schools due to the pandemic, 3,640 new collaborations with foreign schools were activated. With this figure, Italy rises to a total of about 32,085 projects activated since 2005, confirming itself as the third eTwinning country after Turkey and Poland.

The record regarding the number of projects activated goes to Sicily, with 677 new collaborations activated, followed by Campania and Puglia. In 2020, about 50% of the eTwinning projects of teachers from Italian schools were activated with schools in Turkey, France, Spain and Poland.

Our infographics (click to enlarge):