ABSTRACT
In 12 years of civil war, the Salvadoran government and the rebel Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) confronted each other not only on the field of battle but on the ideological and organizational fields as well. The FMLN and its allied community organizations created institutions to replace missing government services in the territory it controlled. Popular education began in El Salvador about 1970 under the leadership of church workers inspired by liberation theology. It was taken up by the political-military organizations which arose at the same time and which formed the FMLN in 1980. Those organizations rejected Che Guevara’s highly militaristic foco strategy, which most Latin American guerrilla organizations had adopted in the 1960s. Teachers and organizers are determined to continue to run their schools on the principles of popular education. While they want to improve their skills, they are convinced that the form of education they have offered has been effective.
