Editing Italian East Africa (section)

===Education===
Prior to Fascism, education in [[Italian Somaliland]] and [[Italian Eritrea]] had primarily been the responsibility of both Roman Catholic and Protestant [[Missionary|missionaries]].{{sfn|Ben-Ghiat|Fuller|2016|p=29}} With Mussolini's rise to power, government schools were created which eventually incorporated the Catholic missionaries' educational programmes while those of the Protestant missionaries became marginalised and circumscribed. [[Andrea Testa|Andrea Festa]], who was made director of the central office governing primary education in [[Eritrea]] in November 1932, declared in 1934 that Fascist efforts in education needed to ensure that [[Indigenous peoples of Africa|native Africans]] were "acquainted with a little of our civilisation" and that they needed to "know Italy, its glories, and ancient history, in order to, become a conscious militia man in the shade of our flag." Such education initiatives were designed to train Africans in a variety of practical tasks useful to the Fascist regime as well as to indoctrinate them with the tenets and lifestyle of Fascist ideology with the aim of creating citizens obedient and subservient to the state.{{sfn|Ben-Ghiat|Fuller|2016|p=84}} 

The propagandistic nature of the education was especially apparent in history textbooks issued to African children, which entirely omitted any discussion of events such as Italian disunity, [[Giuseppe Mazzini|Giuseppe Mazzini's]] "Young Italy" movement, the [[revolutions of 1848]], or [[Giuseppe Garibaldi|Giuseppe Garibaldi's]] [[Expedition of the Thousand]] and instead stressed the "glories" of the [[Roman Empire]] and those of the Italian state that claimed to be its successor. Glorification and lionisation of Mussolini and his "great work" likewise pervaded them, while periods during which [[Libya]] and other then-Italian possessions had been controlled by older, non-Italian empires, such as the [[Ottoman Empire]], were portrayed through an unflattering lens.{{sfn|Ben-Ghiat|Fuller|2016|p=29}} Use of the Fascist salute was mandatory in schools for African children, who were constantly encouraged to become "little soldiers of the [[Duce]]", and every day there was morning ceremony at which the Italian flag was hoisted and patriotic songs were sung. Italian children, whose education the Fascist government prioritised over that of Africans, received education similar to that in Fascist Italy's [[metropole]], though with some aspects of it tailored to the local situation in East Africa. Fascist education in the colony proved to be a failure in the end, with only one twentieth of Italian colonial soldiers possessing any literacy.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Pankhurst |first1=Richard |year=1972 |title=Education in Ethiopia during the Italian Fascist Occupation (1936-1941) |journal=The International Journal of African Historical Studies |volume=5 |issue=3 |pages=361–396 |doi=10.2307/217091 |jstor=217091}}</ref>

In Italian East Africa, Fascist Italy sought to neutralize any educational institutions which provided instruction to Africans beyond the level expected by Fascist ideology.{{sfn|Ben-Ghiat|Fuller|2016|p=84}} In particular the secondary education network in the [[Ethiopian Empire]] had prepared and enabled a relatively small but significant amount of Ethiopians to study abroad at universities in Europe. As a result of this policy and state-sponsored mass murder, post-World War II Ethiopia found itself impoverished of skilled workers due to the very limited and propagandistic education provided to its non-Italian inhabitants under Mussolini's rule.{{sfn|Campbell|2017|p=239}} During [[East African campaign (World War II)|World War II]], few African natives displayed any loyalty to the Fascist state that the state's schools had so fervently tried to instill.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Pankhurst |first1=Richard |year=1972 |title=Education in Ethiopia during the Italian Fascist Occupation (1936-1941) |journal=The International Journal of African Historical Studies |volume=5 |issue=3 |pages=361–396 |doi=10.2307/217091 |jstor=217091}}</ref>