"This implies that families have become estranged from schools, [it is] a tension that needs to be resolved," the minister said during a recording of the flagship talk show Porta a Porta on Rai 1.
"I am a great believer in a relationship that empowers children and considers parents not as union representatives for their kids but as co-authors of an educational path that is supportive" of the teaching profession," continued Valditara.
He added that the authority and social importance of teachers needs to be put back at centre stage.
"Today I visited the Garibaldi Institute in Rome, and I met many motivated children, full of enthusiasm," the minister said.
"In a dramatic moment such as this, I would not like the message to be that our young people all have problems, while (in reality) Italian schools are made up of many wonderful kids," Valditara said.
He said Monday's episode in Abbiategrasso in which the assailant also turned a replica gun on his classmates before being arrested was "something different from bullying".
Bullying is a problem in all European countries and it is "an expression of a society that has lost the culture of respect and cultivates arrogance and high-handedness," he added.
ANSA
