In 2021, exactly 60 years after its inaugural edition, the competition has been revived in a COVID-safe way.

No longer hosted at the University of Melbourne, which has long been home to many of the organisation’s initiatives, the competition has become itinerant: the 15 judges are moving from school to school (in some cases virtually, via Zoom), judging the winners of each individual school and no longer at a state level.

Ester Marcuccio, who has coordinated the competition for eight years, said the judge’s enthusiasm has been essential to the success of the initiative.

“It’s been challenging from an organisational perspective; it’s much easier to host school groups for two weeks at the university,” Marcuccio added.

“The lockdowns that have affected Melbourne in recent months haven’t helped; there’s a school in Traralgon that has had to postpone its participation in the competition three times.

“You have to deal with the different restrictions of schools regarding visitors, which vary a lot from institution to institution.”

Some sessions have taken place online, but there have been greater challenges for students and less involvement.

“Doing activities remotely is completely different; we teachers have also seen this with lessons in general,” Marcuccio said.

Despite the logistical obstacles, it is important for the Dante Alighieri Society to continue the competition, especially after the many requests received last year, proving that, even 60 years after its inception, the initiative is still a motivational and promotional tool for Italian language teachers.

The competition was conceived at the end of the 1950s, precisely to encourage the spread of Italian language and culture in schools.

The first edition, organised in collaboration with Colin McCormick, a professor at the University of Melbourne, saw the participation of 120 students.

Within six years, the number of contestants rose to over 400, surpassing 3000 at the end of the 1990s.

The competition will continue throughout August and early September, in the hope that it will be able to return to the University of Melbourne in 2022.