ROME-German lecturers make their voice heard in the ongoing lettori dispute in an open letter addressed to Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

 Signed by a German and English language teacher at the Univeristy of Siena, Birgitte Hoiberg-Nielsen, on behalf of German language professors at Italian universities, the letter sent Monday to the prime minister follows numerous other appeals made to date with the intention of drawing the attention of the highest Italian authorities to the issue of mistreatment of foreign lecturers at Italian higher education institutions, which remains unresolved after almost thirty years.

 As stated in the letter, it is not the first such appeal made by German lettori: in September 2012, German language teachers reunited at an annual conference in Naples drew up an open letter to the then prime minister, Mario Monti, unanimously approved and signed by around half of the German university language instructors in Italy, which, however, remained without a reply until June 2013, when it was re-sent to Mr Monti’s successor, Enrico Letta, but the appeal, again, remained unanswered.

 “In the meantime the situation has become worse,” reads the letter to Mr Renzi, “and therefore, trusting in your interest in and understanding of the importance of foreign language teaching, as well as your reaffirmed intention to respect the agreements with the European Union, we are now re-sending this letter to you.”

 “Despite the warnings from the EU, Italy continues to deny foreign language instructors the university lecturer status, placing them in the technical-administrative staff category, which guarantees them a remuneration much below the level of university lecturers’ salaries,” states the letter, pointing out that recently many lettori have been affected by pay cuts reaching 75 percent.

 “We are asking you to put an end to the discrimination against university foreign language instructors, and to finally guarantee them an economic treatment and social security comparable to those of Italian citizens,” reads the letter and, making a reference to the “promptness” with which the prime minister addressed the issue of Italian school teacher salaries, expresses “hope for an equally rapid intervention” to resolve the issue which has had “devastating and destabilising effects”, not only for foreign language teachers in Italy, but for the quality of foreign language teaching itself.