Educational Activities
The Educational Activities Office promotes the educational mission of the Museums as a place of knowledge, formation and learning as an essential part of the personal, human, religious and civil growth of learners.
It is responsible for planning guided tours, workshops, and special and inclusive education. It studies and develops a methodology aimed at critical and creative engagement, in which the museum can be the privileged space for extended teaching. It has a special partnership with schools of all levels, both national and international, with which it establishes a relationship of mutual necessity and integration, based on the principle of the museum as the basis for lifelong learning.
On 1 June 1983, Professor Carlo Pietrangeli officially communicated the establishment of an Educational Activities Office to respond to the need to “enhance relations with the school environment, creating a specific sector destined to improve and facilitate school visits”. Perfectly aligned with the appeal launched by the Ministry of Public Instruction in Italy with Circular no. 128 of 1970, inviting the establishment of educational sections in the most important museums, the best conditions were created for the introduction of a conscious education in heritage and the establishment of a lasting link between museums and schools. In 1991, a programme was drawn up to involve schoolchildren who, after watching the audiovisual programme on Egyptian civilisation and the screening of the documentary La Cappella Sistina alla luce dei restauri (The Sistine Chapel in the light of restoration), were invited to take a guided tour of the museums. This marked the arrival of the first educational worker, who, with her 50 visits per year (1992-1993), confirmed the success of the experiment. The Office soon employed a new team of educational workers (graduates and specialists in art history or archaeology), who numbered 20 during the 2003-2004 school year and who, suitably trained, introduced schools of all levels to the highly educational role of the Museums.
The General Regulations of the Holy See in 2007 extended this successful initiative, previously adopted only for local schools, to offer reduced admission fees and special tickets to all schools at international level, as well as free admission for accompanying teachers. With the entry into force of the New Regulations of the Vatican Museums (24 September 2008), the Office became independent from the Special Visits Office (since 1991, both had been conceived as a single entity), which was split and expanded to become the current Office of Services and Public Relations.
On the days of 14 and 15 October 2008, the first Seminar for the formation of teachers was organized, entitled The Vatican Museums. History, Collections, Educational Tours, in collaboration with the ANISA Association (Art History Teachers), with which a partnership was established: a first step and stimulus, also with regard to international educational proposals, for a lasting link between schools and museums.