Rachad arrived from morocco two years ago. He supports Milan (“of course”) and wants to be an electrician, like his father. Manpreet is a Punjabi Sikh, who followed her lorry-driver father here five years ago. Her ambition is rather different — she wants to become president of India. Adama, from Senegal, is the shyest. At 11, he is the youngest in the group, and he has got a baby sister at home to think about. He likes looking after her, he says.

The three are all pupils at the Istituto Comprensivo Fogazzaro in Follina, a combined primary and middle school in north-east Italy. It is one of the most multi-ethnic schools in the country (“if not themost” says headteacher Gianni Busolini). More than a quarter of its pupils are foreign and they come from 23 countries.

There are now 420,000 immigrants in Italian schools, a 20 percent rise since last year. The number may still be small — 4 percent of the total school population — compared with other countries in Europe, but it is growing rapidly, bringing new problems and challenges for teachers.

But there are two striking differences from immigration patterns in countries like Britain and France, historically linked to specific countries by a colonial past. The first is the range of countries of origin: Albania, the former Yugoslavia, Ukraine, Romania, North Africa, Senegal, Nigeria, China and South America. The second is the kind of place families end up in, like Follina.

Big towns such as Rome, Milan and Genoa have their fair share of third world immigrants. But work is often easier to find in semi-rural areas, where a sudden growth in light industry and family-run businesses provided the driving force behind the economic boom of the 1970s. Follina, a pretty village of 3,000 inhabitants in the foothills of the Dolomites, is known for its 14th-century abbey, and a history in the wool trade. Today there are furniture factories and a textile industry (this is Benetton country) where there still are jobs for people moving in. Housing is relatively easy to find.

When it comes to community relations, the school is in the frontline. “On the whole, we’ve only had small problems,” says Busolini. “I can count the number of local parents who have withdrawn children to send them to private schools on one hand.”

Language is the main problem, since success at school depends on knowing Italian. “This is a sore point,” says Busolini, “since up to a quarter of foreign children have to repeat the year, often because of language problems, whereas the percentage is much smaller for Italian children.”

But he insists that inclusion into mainstream education is right. “I’m a great believer in the constitution, which says that everyone is equal and has equal dignity,” he says.