Chapter La formazione della classe dirigente somala: la prima coorte di studenti somali dell’Università di Padova (1956-69)

Abstract

This chapter looks at Italy’s scholarship programmes to promote higher education in Somalia. It focuses on a group of Somali students who, in between 1956 and 1969, started their university career in Mogadishu and completed it in Padua. It argues that on the one hand these programmes reflected Italy’s efforts to promote its culture and links with the former colony. On the other, these were also affected by the interaction with Somali students and international actors such as the UN and its agency UNESCO.