"Schools for Rome 2020" has been launched by the city's Mayor Gianni Alemanno and Italian Education Minister Maria Stella Gelmini.

The goal of the programme is to actively involve schools in the city's candidature and help spread awareness of the importance of sports and the Olympic spirit of competition.

Among the scheme's planned initiatives are special documentaries on the history of the Olympics and the creation of a promotional television spot to be broadcasted globally, an internet website on the Games designed by the children and meetings and debates with world athletes and sport commentators.

"All these projects will testify the students' interest and passion in participating to this important event by sponsoring Rome's global image and bid to host the Games in 2020", said Gelmini.

Alemanno stressed the important role students play in athletics and appealed.

"Who knows, maybe one of you might become an athlete in 2020," he said.

"The cultural values and ideals of the Olympics represent the unity of different national identities that come together to give the best of themselves through fair game and competition."

The new initiative comes after Franco Carraro, one of Italy's five International Olympic Committee (IOC) members, urged Rome to begin picking up the pace of its bid.

"I know that my IOC colleagues heard the news [that Rome is bidding] then but they haven't heard anything since," he said.

"Over these six months the world has changed, and especially the economic climate in Europe," said Carraro, the Mayor of Rome between 1989 and 1993.

In May Rome beat Venice to became Italy's official candidate for the 2020 Olympic Games.

The decision was taken by the Italian Olympic Committee in consideration of the fact that Rome has a greater logistic, infrastructural and organizational backbone with the additional advantage of having pre-existing structures built when the city hosted the 1960 Olympics.

The capital has already launched a thorough urban re-style focused on the building of an "Olympic Park" featuring water flows and technological structures.

"The Rome candidacy definitely costs less than other cities," Carraro said.

"Starting from a solid basis is a big advantage, but you need to explain what it costs, you have to explain it in numbers."

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