Scuola: supplenze a rischio per colpa della piattaforma online

Istanze Online non funziona: impossibile accedere alla piattaforma POLIS, impossibile scegliere le scuole dove proporsi come supplenti. Le scuole italiane rischiano di restare senza docenti.

Si chiama POLIS (Presentazione On Line delle IStanze), ma tutti la chiamano “Istanze Online" ed è la piattaforma online del Ministero dell’Istruzione che maestri e professori italiani devono usare quest’anno per presentare la domanda di assunzione dalle GPS, le Graduatorie Provinciali per le Supplenze (GPS). Se non fosse che POLIS ha qualche problema.

La procedura di presentazione delle domande è stata aperta il 10 agosto e verrà chiusa il 21 agosto, ma moltissimi aspiranti supplenti non riescono ad accedere al sito o a farlo funzionare correttamente. No hacker attack or act of cyberterrorism: the platform is simply undersized to the scope of the work it has to do. Considerable scope, by the way, since according to data from the Ministry of Education last year, applications to GPS have exceeded 750 thousand. This year, therefore, there are 750 thousand substitute teachers trying to access POLIS and their number was already known last year. The risk, at this point, is that many aspiring substitute teachers will not be able to enter all the schools for which they want to propose themselves and, consequently, that those schools will be left without substitute teachers for the 2021/22 school year.

How Istanze Online works

Istanze Online is a Web platform that can be accessed after registration (SPID, Electronic Identity Card or eIDAS are required). After accessing the teacher can update their data and qualifications or go directly to the choice of schools in which it is available to perform the substitutions.

You can enter a maximum of 150 schools and aspiring substitutes tend to choose them all, to have more chances to work. The choices must be entered one by one, through a series of drop-down menus from which to select the municipality, school district or individual school.

The teacher can create his or her list of 150 schools, edit it several times and, when it is ready, can submit it to the platform. Once submitted, if he has made any mistakes or changes his mind about a school, he is forced to undo all the work he has already done and start over from scratch. All this must be done by the closing date of the procedure, which this year is set for August 21.

Istanze Online does not work

The procedure provided by the Ministry of Education for the choice of schools for which each teacher can propose, therefore, is fully computerized but very cumbersome.

The real problem, however, is that the platform POLIS Istanze Online has not been working properly for days: the problem mostly reported is the inability to access after logging in, but even those who can connect then have great difficulty in proceeding in the choice of schools, due to a great slowness of the system. Sometimes, then, it happens to be thrown out of the platform and have to start all over again from scratch.

All this is frustrating for teachers, but it could also become a problem for ordinary citizens who have children of school age. Through POLIS Istanze Online, in fact, are managed the applications for substitution of all schools of every order and degree, from infancy to secondary school.

This means that, if the platform is not unlocked, many teachers will not be able to enter their preferences and will never be called by the schools, which will not see them in the list of teachers available. In simple terms: either the platform is unblocked, or the deadlines are extended, or we risk being left without substitute teachers for the 2021/22 school year.