Inside a Spanish Sahara classroom in 1956: lessons, anthems and indoctrination

Classrooms in Spanish Sahara (1956): songs, maps and a story that doesn't add up

On 23 October 1956, in the middle of the postwar period and under Francoist rule over Western Sahara, a school in El Aaiún housed dozens of Sahrawi children. Photos from the time show desks, a blackboard and a map of Spain with its African possessions. But what was taught there was far from neutral.

Colonial education combined basic reading and arithmetic with patriotic anthems and geography of mainland Spain. Pupils recited from memory the rivers and provinces of the colonizing country, while the reality of the desert, the nomads and the local culture was left out of the curriculum. A system that sought to "Hispanicize" the indigenous population, with teachers brought in from the peninsula and textbooks approved by the regime.

Today's debate about those years swings between nostalgia –"Those little girls knew more than today's teenagers"– and criticism: "How pathetic to teach things through little songs they repeat like parrots without understanding what they say." Both sides agree that the methodology was repetitive and disconnected from the environment.

The paradox of that education is that, despite its rigidity, it achieved a certain level of literacy. In 1956 barely 10% of the Sahrawi population could read and write; by 1970, the figure had risen to 25%. But the price was forced assimilation. After the Green March and the Spanish withdrawal in 1975, the system collapsed. Today, in the refugee camps, classrooms are tents and Arabic has displaced Spanish.

The Francoist education model in the Sahara: between dogma and necessity

The school curricula of the time had three pillars: Catholic religion, patriotic training and the rudiments of general culture. The "little songs" some critics refer to were anthems such as "Cara al Sol" or regional songs, which the children had to sing daily. There was no sens education, no debate on gender roles; the Sahrawi woman, a pupil at home or in segregated schools, received training in sewing and domestic tasks.

"Society was racist, sens and black and white," a recent analysis sums up. Female literacy barely exceeded 5% in 1956. However, some argue that this "values-based education" created cohesion and respect, something they miss in today's classrooms: "Now children are in the hands of socialists and radical feminists who corrupt them."

The economic and territorial legacy: gift or abandonment?

The school was also an instrument of colonial power. While children learned to locate León or Badajoz on the map, the Sahrawi territory –rich in phosphates and fishing– was administered as province number 53. In 1975, Spain abandoned it after the Madrid Accords, which some describe as "a gift to the Jewish clique and the sultan in exchange for briefcases." The reality is that Western Sahara remains unresolved, with a frozen conflict between Segarro and the Polisario Front.

What remains of those classrooms? Black and white photos, oral testimonies and an uncomfortable question: was a school that indoctrinated but taught better than no school at all? The debate remains open.