With about 30,000 students, 8,000 of whom foreign citizens (Chinese, Pakistani, Albanian, North African), Prato schools are truly a microcosm with exceptional potential and complicated challenges, where the first priority is that of ensuring the quality of educational projects, addressing early leaving and strengthening intercultural dialogue.
Prato offers a complete educational service: thanks to an integrated public-private system, it meets more than 80% of crèche demand and 100% of preschool demand. In the city there are 14 primary and intermediate public schools, the historic Cicognini Boarding School, 8 municipal preschools and many private schools; over 10,000 students are enrolled in 14 secondary schools - 12 public ones, Cicognini Boarding School and the private secondary school S.Niccolò.
The pronounced multi-ethnic character of the school population requires local bodies and institutions to implement a wide range of cultural integration activities, such as language courses, experimental mentoring and cooperative learning initiatives which represent a stimulating resource for young students and their families. All initiatives aimed at right to education and cultural integration are organized within SIC (School Integrates Cultures), an organization of excellence at the national level whose protocol has been uniting for over ten years the Region, Province, Municipality and schools in the design and coordinated management of activities.