Often underestimated as such, the anticolonial wars on liberation struggle were also large scale educational endeavors. This paper approaches the theme of liberation/emancipation and decolonization through school culture and curriculum in the Guinea Bissau during Guinean/Cape Verdean Liberation struggle in the territory against Portuguese colonialism (1960-1974).

Between 1963–1974, the African Party for the Independence of Guinea Bissau (PAIGC) defined education as one of the main pillars against Portuguese colonialism and as the most important ‘weapon’ to achieve liberation and national independence.

During armed struggle for independence, the Party developed in the territory of Guinea Bissau an extended network of schools for young and adult alike. This network of schools located in the Guinea forest was linked with a network of Party schools located in internationally to the Republic of Guinea and Senegal. Pupils who attended these schools were then prepared to continue their studies abroad mainly in socialist countries.

The education project was referred to as educação militante (militant education) or escola militante (militant school). Militant education or militant school, terms use here interchangeably, can be defined as a committed, engaged and conscious anti-colonial and decolonial principles toward liberation.

Based in written archived sources and oral history testimonies, this paper focus on how PAIGC conceived and put in practice their militant education project focus on the school curriculum developed collaboratively by teachers, students and community between 1963–1974.

By focusing on the school’s curriculum, this paper also highlights the ambitions, difficulties and contradictions of designing a school curriculum for liberation, emancipation, and citizenship.