Introducing the school:
The establishment of the Teachers’ House in Bouzareah in 1865, it had cognitive, educational, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds, and after the occupation of the land was a prelude to the occupation of minds, and the most successful means of molding the elites and the soft machine for missionary propaganda of a civilized society.
One of the goals of this colonial socio-educational apparatus was to resurrect a new ideology that was tasked with confusing and disrupting people’s thoughts, confusing their beliefs, and eradicating the Arabic and Amazigh languages.
Aimé Dupuy, the director of the Teachers’ House, expressed that this enlightening act is within the context of the charter of the occupation, and in the political scheme, the Teachers’ House aimed to form the apostles of France, and with them promote the concepts of “freedom of races and beliefs”, thus deserving to be the highest institutional body in Algeria, as described by the author of the novel Al-Gharib Alberkamy.
In opposition to this project, many national names succeeded in exploiting the French language as a spoil of war to advocate for national causes, preserve national memory, and call for liberation, including Mohamed Ben Shanab (1869-1921) in his heritage excavations, Fassi El-Said (1880) who published the newspaper “The Voice of the Poor”, and “The Memory of an Algerian Teacher”; and Mohamed Cherif Sahli (1906-1989), writer and activist in the national movement, member of the media Committee of the FLN Federation in France in 1955, representative of the FLN in France (1957-1962), and author of books: the Resistance, The Letter of Jugurtha 1947, Algeria Accuses 1949, A Conspiracy Against the People of Africa 1950, Emir Abdelkader, Knight of Faith 1953, Decolonizing History 1965, and many other names, which was transformed after independence into the Technological Institute and then the Higher School of Teachers.
The Teachers’ House was a leadership center parallel to that of the Ministry of War, in terms of importance, and if Napoleon Bonaparte took the printing press with him in his military campaign in Egypt, the French colonial invasion in Algeria bet on the role of teachers in completing the mission after controlling the land, so it was the arm that suppresses language and identity by replacing them with Western identity projects.
One of the objectives of the establishment was to meet the need of the Frenco-French primary school for qualified teachers due to the increasing number of settlers, and one of the reasons for its emergence was also the establishment of the primary school directed to the Algerians – the natives, which was then called, the Arab-French school. The first recommendation was to establish a teacher training school. It appeared in the report of General Georges Bildault in 1849.
In its context, it focused on education directed to Algerians in which the Arabic language occupies a great place. At the time when the committee was thinking of spreading its colonialist ideology of knowledge, pedagogy, and education, it was working on the other hand, starting in 1863, to practice drying up the sources of national culture by creating the position of inspector for public educational institutions open to people by strictly monitoring education directed to Algerians, such as primary schools, zawiyas and Quranic schools that were working to preserve the foundations of the nation. This suggests that it was part of the colonial strategic project to keep private education subordinate to the Ministry of War and its military representatives. In 1865-1866, the Teachers’ House announced the conditions for admission, including age (16-22), a medical certificate, a level certificate, a pledge to practice the profession for ten years, in addition to a certificate of good standing delivered by the director of the school or the commander of the district. In the first batch, the number of admissions did not exceed thirty individuals, only three of whom were Algerians, and the period of study for native teachers was set at two years.
In 1892, it was turned into three years, and in the last year of graduation, they are trained in the Arabic language, and receive anthropological knowledge about Algerian society and integrate them into the social path, by organizing internal trips to learn about the culture, traditions, and rituals of Algerian society.
1. An Overview of the School's Origins
The Higher School of Teachers in Arts and Humanities was established by Executive Decree 84/206 of August 18, 1984; it is a public institution of an administrative nature under the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research with legal personality and financial independence. The Higher School of Teachers in Bouzareah began its scientific and pedagogical activity starting from the academic year 1991-1992 after obtaining a temporary headquarters in the Kharrouba annex.
Despite the narrowness of the headquarters and the lack of the necessary facilities for teaching, the school was able to carry out the tasks assigned to it in the field of its pedagogical and scientific activity for 7 years, where it obtained. Starting from the 1998-1999 academic year, its current headquarters located in 93 Rue Ali Remli Bouzareah, after the decision to transfer the Technological Institutes of Education to the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in 1998.
The headquarters dates back to the era of French colonization, as it was built in 1860 with solid building materials, stones in a geometric shape in the form of wings connected to each other in a semicircle. It constitutes the largest part of the real estate complex, as it was built in the form of departments, workshops, and administrative offices, as it consists of a basement, ground floor, and first floor. The headquarters also shows annexes to the old building, including a laboratory and a gymnasium, built around 1970. Other annexes were built in recent years, such as the school library, research laboratories, and two amphitheaters, the “Mouloud Faraoun Amphitheater” and the “New Amphitheater” with teaching rooms, were built taking into account the architectural character of the school.
2. The Legal Framework of the School:
The Higher School of Teachers in Bouzareah was subject to the provisions of Executive Decree No. 245/81 of 5/12/1981, containing the Model Statute of Higher Schools of Teachers, as amended and supplemented by Executive Decree No. 02/318 of 14/10/2002, and its administrative organization was subject to the Joint Ministerial Decree of 28/07/1991, containing the structural organization of higher schools.
It was transformed by Executive Decree No. 08-211 of July 14, 2008, transforming the Higher School specialized in Arts and Humanities in Algiers into a non-university school.
– Currently, the Higher School of Teachers of Bouzareah is subject to the provisions of Executive Decree No. 16-176 dated 9 Ramadan 1437, corresponding to June 14, 2016, which determines the model basic law for the Higher School, amending and supplementing the provisions of Executive Decree No. 05-500 of December 29, 2016 05 which defines tasks The school outside the university and the rules for its organization and functioning.
Its administrative organization is subject to the Joint Ministerial Resolution dated 09 Jumada ll 1439, corresponding to February 25, 2018, which determines the administrative organization of the Higher School, the nature of its technical interests, and its organization amended and supplemented by the Joint Ministerial Resolution dated 5 Ramadan 1428, corresponding to September 17, 2007, which determines the administrative organization of the school outside the university and the nature of its technical interests and organization
The name of the school: The Higher School of Teachers in Bouzareah was also dedicated to:
The scholar Sheikh: Mubarak Ibn Mohamed Ibrahimi Al-Meili Algazairi
By Decision No. 72 dated 08 Safar 1438 corresponding to 08 November 2016
Throughout its history, great literary figures have taught at the Higher School of Teachers of Bouzareah such as the writer Mouloud Faraoun, the scholar Ibn Shanab, the writer Rachid Mimouni, Harzallah Mohamed Al-Saleh, Suleiman Jawadi, Emmanuel Robles, and other prominent figures …
3. Succession of directors:
- Dr. Bokaabache Abdellatif, the first director of the school at the Kharrouba headquarters from 1991 to 1998.
- Dr. Mohamed El Hadi Boutaren from “1998 – 2006”
- Dr. Abdelkader Hanni “2006 – 2009”.
- Dr. Abdallah kolli “2009 – 2015”.
- Dr. Aliche Lamouri “2015 – 2019”.
- The current director is Dr. Ratiba Guidoum since 2019