TURIN, Italy — “I’m a substitute teacher working at three schools in three different towns in Piedmont. Some days I have to go to all three. That means driving nearly 125 miles in a single workday. It’s madness.”

Razvan Hotca is 30 and teaches economics at a high school level. He is in his fourth year of temporary teaching contracts, so he knows how the system works. This year, however, he has found himself with a schedule that is almost impossible to sustain: six hours a week in Ivrea, 11 in Chieri and one in Caluso. All three towns are in the province of Turin, but each leg of the journey takes between 30 minutes and an hour by car.

On some days, his schedule requires him to teach in all three schools. Take last Thursday for example, he left Turin by car at 7 a.m. and taught in Caluso from 8 to 9. Then he got back behind the wheel for an hour-long drive to Ivrea, where he taught from 10 a.m. until 12:40 p.m. An hour later, he was back home in Turin. But at 4 p.m., he had to set off again to reach Chieri by 5, where he teaches evening classes until 9 p.m. He finally gets home at 10.

Then there is the cost.

“The Turin-Ivra highway tolls alone come to almost €10 for a round trip, not counting gas, which we all know how is expensive it is these days,” Hotca says. “I take home an average of €1,700 a month. You can do the math.”

There is also the problem of scheduling. “Driving two or three hours a day and splitting my time among three schools makes it impossible for me to attend afternoon meetings, class council meetings and school board meetings. Some principals have expressed concerns.”

And there is another complication: by now, he cannot simply walk away. Giving up a substitute teaching assignment automatically excludes a teacher from the Provincial Substitute-Tacher Rankings for two years. That is the penalty for those who receive an offer through Italy’s Provincial Substitute Teacher Rankings, known as GPS, who fail to take up the post.

Hotca is effectively trapped. Even the Turin Territorial School Office says it cannot intervene.

“He indicated those schools as places where he was willing to work,” says Concetta Parafioriti, the office’s Director. “I understand the difficulties, but we can’t help him now. When teachers submit their availability for substitute positions, they must consider the consequences in advance. He was the one who selected those schools and towns.”

Hotca knows that. But when he submitted his preferences, he relied on Ministerial Ordinance No. 27, dated Feb. 16, 2026, which states that teachers can complete their required teaching hours across no more than three schools in no more than two municipalities. Believing that his assignment violated the rule, he turned to the Flc Cgil Teachers’ Union, arguing that a mistake had been made.

The issue is technical and difficult for anyone outside the education system to follow. In short, Hotca received an 11-hour-a-week teaching assignment in Chieri, which he supplemented with a six-hour block in Ivrea and a one-hour block in Caluso. According to Parafioriti, the rule applies to each individual block of hours, not to the teacher’s overall workload.

“His situation is therefore not in violation of the rule, because the two-municipality limit is being respected,” she says.

Hotca interprets the regulation differently. He believes the limit of two municipalities should apply to all the assignments held by an individual substitute teacher combined, rather than to each separate block of hours. He has asked the school office for clarification and says he is prepared to take legal action if necessary.

It is easy to get lost in bureaucratic fine print and lose sight of the bigger picture. But Hotca’s predicament lays bare the maze of Italy’s system of temporary teaching contracts.

Teachers are willing to travel between towns across a province, sometimes over considerable distances, simply to secure enough hours to earn a living. Faced with algorithms, rankings and points, they select as many schools as possible in the hope of reaching the maximum teaching load of 18 hours a week.

Hotca has managed to do that. But earning €1,700 a month comes at a considerable cost. The schools, too, are paying the price. A teacher who cannot attend meetings or class council sessions, who cannot stay a minute longer because he must rush off to another school, is a loss for everyone.

Parafioriti remains optimistic.

“The system will be improved,” she says. “This was the first year with the changes. Often, the Ministry manages to make the system work better in subsequent years.”

That is the hope. Not just for Hotca, but for the entire school system.

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