Education in the Italian colonies during the interwar period

Education in the Italian colonies during the interwar period, 
Pretelli, Matteo. (2011) Education in the Italian colonies during the interwar period. Modern Italy, Vol.16 (No.3). pp. 275-293.

Abstract:
Fascism saw education as a key way to ‘make Italians’ both at home and in itscolonies. Schools for Italians and for the indigenous population in Africa were akey part of this project. These educational institutions were set up, partly, toconvince young Italians of their role as colonisers and bearers of an idea of ‘Italian civilisation’. A small minority of Africans, who were permitted to attendschools created for a section of the local population, were given an education thatwas designed to reinforce their role as inferior and as targets for an idea of asuperior ‘Italian civilisation’. This article will analyse the role of the schools set upin the colonies both for Italians and for the local population, as well as their useof politics, propaganda and their educational techniques. The article looks atcontinuities and breaks with the pre-Fascist period, as well as the radicalisation of racist educational policies after the proclamation of the empire.

Scholarship on Italian colonialism has made various contributions regarding the role of education in Italy’s overseas possessions prior to the outbreak of the Second World War.An early study by Roland De Marco (1943) was undertaken before this conflict had evenconcluded. It was not until the 1970s, however, that Richard Pankhurst wrote aboutItalian textbooks in Africa (1970) and completed the first study of Italian education inEast Africa after the Italo-Ethiopian conflict (1972). In the same decade, Leonard AlbanAppleton (1979) examined education in Libya under Italian rule. Thereafter, a number of both Italian and other scholars, such as Negash (1987), Martelli (1989), Ciampi (1996),and Smith-Simonsen (1997), contributed to a deeper understanding of Italian colonialeducation in Africa.Since 2000, various work has addressed the issue of the educational experience underItalian rule of both Libya (al-Tahir al-Jarari 2000; Cresti 2001; Galoppini 2001, 107–08; DiPasquale 2007) and Eritrea (Negash 2005, 109–20; Ventura 2007). Before then, this hadremained a peripheral topic within accounts of Italian colonialism (Del Boca 1992, 227,240; Labanca 1993, 253–54; 1996, 270), perhaps due to the absence of sufficientdocumentation (Ventura 2007, 5).

Labanca has included an account of the educationalsystem within his comprehensive account of Italian colonial history (2002, 334–37, 525).Several studies have focused on how Africa was portrayed in school textbooks and otherpublications for young people resident in Italy (Franco 1994; Labanca 2000a, 2003b;Finaldi 2003; Asioli 2004a, 2004b; Bottoni 2006, 2008)

In Eritrea, in 1939 there were 152 teachers, 86 instructor priests, and
21 Eritrean assistants. There were 107 classes recorded. In the school year 1934–1935, there was one scuola media (enrolling 91 students) and seven primary schools (46 classes and 1010 students). 
There were 123 classes. recorded. In the school year 1934–1935, there were six schools with 44 classes and 1985 students. 1793 were in the capital Asmara 

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