Workers’ High Schools

Education and popular culture were one of the signatures of the Second Republic’s modernization project, and the Republic introduced legislation favouring secular public education early on. Once the Civil War was underway, initiatives such as Culture Militias and Front-Line Libraries which promoted literacy among the soldiers, carried this interest in culture to the battlefield, as the Flying Brigades and Cultural Missions did on the home front. 

The Workers’ High Schools created by the Ministry of Public Instruction a few days after the government moved from Madrid to Valencia in November 1936, with the goal of making higher education available to young workers, are another example of how the Republic’s educational work continued in spite of the war. Through an accelerated process, workers could earn their high school diploma in only two years (four semesters). The first Institute was located in the building in Valencia’s Fernando el Católico Avenue that had housed the Jesuits’ elite San José College. Others were later set up in Sabadell, Barcelona, and Madrid. 

After passing through a selection process, students between 15 and 18 years of age entered mixed-gender residence and their families received money to compensate for their lost wages. Of the 300 students admitted, around fifty were girls. The Institute employed the most advanced pedagogical methods: active student participation, the study of contemporary and relevant subjects, the use of libraries and daily newspapers, laboratory work, scientific films, and excursions and open-air classes. 

Between 1937 and 1939, the Valencia Institute had more than 300 students who remembered it as a transformative experience. Their teachers included some of the most prestigious high school teachers in Spain: Mercedes Ontañon, Enrique Lagunero, Ana Martínez Iborra, Rafael Pérez Contel, Rafael de Penagos, Federico Portillo, Enrique Rioja Lo Bianco, Samuel Gili Gaya, Teófilo Lagunero, Manuel Núñez de Arenas o Juan Renau.  

This photograph was taken by Walter Reuter during a visit to the Valencia Workers’ High School in 1937. It was one of a series of photos that showed the school’s typical daily activities and that was used by the Ministry of Public Instruction to make a publicity poster that was designed by Mauricio Amster.