ROME -- Italy's new budget law has allocated as much as 400 million euros for education, university and research sectors but Education Minister Stefania Giannini again has turned a deaf ear to requests from the UK and other foreign lettori in Italian universities and the British government demanding compensation for decades of discrimination in relation to wages, education sources said Thursday.

 Huge sums of money will be allocated to funds for the right to study, to research, and to hiring more teachers, as well as to the Italian comprehensive school equivalent, and for the recognition of merit, Il Fatto Quotidiano reports. However David Petrie, president of the foreign lecturers' trade union ALLSI said he is "very disappointed" that the lettori have not been awarded compensation in the bill despite repeated promises by the Italian government to do so dating back to 2014.

 The sum of 400 million euros will become available from 2018 -- 140 million’s worth from 2017. The money will help to make the thousands of currently precarious jobs in these sectors more stable, and to attempt to wipe the distinction between an abstract standard of how many staff are theoretically needed in a school, and the reality of how many are actually needed in order for these institutes to run properly.

 It is not yet known how many more jobs this money will create exactly, but according to the ministry, it would be around 25,000.

 In relation to universities, the budgetary law has stayed true to the rhetoric presented with the latest National Research Plan, and has planned in financial support for researchers. In fact, a National Fund for Basic Research of 45 million euros a year -- about 3,000 euros per head for those benefitting from it -- will be set up as part of the law, writes Il Fatto Quotidiano.

 It is described as a first step to try to fill the serious lack of research requests, and is another incentive to try to reverse the brain drain from Italy. The issue of compensation for the UK ‘lettori’ (university lecturers), behind on receiving wages, is ignored in the bill -- a slap in the face by Italy after British foreign Secretary Boris Johson raised the matter extremely frankly when he met with his Italian counterpart Paolo Gentiloni recently.

 Another controversial outcome of the new law is the creation of a Fund for financing the most ‘excellent’ university departments of 270 million euros a year -- meaning that the 180 best departments in the country will receive up to 1.35 million euros extra a year to further develop their own activities. A ministerial commission would be called upon to evaluate and judge this.

 The budgetary law has allocated 150 million euros to support students for the right to study. From 2018, 85 million euros (half this sum in 2017) will go to universities that relieve capable students in tough financial situations of their fees, amongst various other initiatives.

 The law is also offering tax cuts -- of up to 85 million in 2019 and 2020 -- for companies that hire freshly-graduated students.

 Other projects to primary schools and nurseries will also already take effect in the coming weeks.

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