Let’s fly you through an episode of Algerian glorious history.
Today we will talk about education in Algeria before the French occupation, if we go back 200 or 300 years, this book of Algeria’s history was printed in 1724 and we read in its pages:
We see in the city (Algiers means) ten major mosques and fifty small universities three major institutes or schools and an uncountable number of schools for young people And we can’t cross this paragraph until we understand it well, the writer here makes a distinction between the Great Mosque and the Neighbourhood Mosque and the same institutes and children’s schools, and also countless schools, wherever he goes, which shows that all families were sending their children to school to learn in 1724.
In the book Summary of Algeria’s History, from which we read several pages earlier, printed in 1805.
Here he talks about the town of Nikanz, which we expect to be Ngaous at Batna, where he says: It has a wonderful mosque and a college or institute of sharia sciences, and we also note here that the writer distinguishes between the mosque and the mosque and between the college and the school, And here after talking about boys’ schools, he also talks about girls’ schools, and he says that I think these people stand on the edge of civilization and can easily be pushed to it only by improving the system of government and its principles and practices, and this book was also printed before the occupation in 1826. And this German William Chamber, who visited Algeria for one year after its occupation in 1831, where France has yet to make any mark on our education system, He says I didn’t come across any Algerian who can’t read and write unlike southern European countries who rarely find among the general public someone who is very good at reading and writing. He also says I met a young Algerian who is still fluent in Arabic, English, Spanish, French, Italian and Greek. When the French occupation arrived in Algeria, almost all Algerians spoke French, while the occupation soldiers were not good at Arabic.
If we asked a traveller who visited Algeria in 1836, how would he describe the educational situation?
He says Algerians are more educated than we would have expected. All of them are good at reading and writing. Most of them are good at calculating and testifying that he met Arabs and tribes and found them to be better at writing and numeracy.
And here it is reminded that Algerian teachers have not been ruthless, they don’t hit the pupils
As teachers in Europe do, however, the headteacher always holds a stick in his hand that pupils sometimes knock on their shoulders to alert, not on other areas of the body, and also lists how he spent an hour with them in Algerian school and attended a lesson with them.
Aristen Gilbert said in 1839, we should establish a newspaper because Arabs have great curiosity to read and read especially on topics that talk about industry, agriculture and other useful arts.
Almost all Arabs are good at reading and writing and in every village two schools.
Then comes the education developed by colonial France in Algeria, and we will explain why France founded new schools in Algeria and lost teachers and salaries, and the answer is from an old episode we published earlier.
The answer shows its features in this letter from a French teacher in Algeria in 1899 at la nouvelle revue
He says we were surprised to hear that some in the French Parliament were calling for the abolition of higher education in Algeria. Education is essential for the dissemination of French ideas in this colony and for the dissemination of French mindset among Algerian youth who cannot go to school in France, He also says that the University of Algiers is the centre of French in Algeria and will establish the power and wealth of the French race on this black continent. And if you believe that this letter confirmed that the education that France was offering in Algeria was not for the purpose of education, but for the French, ask us for this article, written by Bernard Abano in the same magazine and the same year, in which he also calls for the intensification of education in Algeria.
Differences will gradually disappear because, after young Algerians mingle with us, their ideas will be aligned with ours.
