Écija is a municipality and city in the province of Seville, in the autonomous region of Andalusia. It is located in the eastern part of the province, in the Genil River valley, tributary of the Gualdalquivir River. The municipality borders the province of Cordoba. It has 39.743 inhabitants (INE 2022) and extends over 978,73 km², the largest in the province of Seville. The city has been declared Historic Site in 1966. It is head of a judicial district that encompasses 55.564 inhabitants of the surrounding municipalities. It also provides health services to the same population through the Écija Hospital. The fact that Écija is a central place in a broader territory and part of the Andalusian Medium-size cities network (Espino-Hidalgo, 2015) has halted the decline in population, which remains stable since 1970. Heritage wise, the city is known for its own baroque style “barroco ecijano”, developed inside the economic prosperity experienced by Écija in the 18th century.  

In 1945 the city was suffering from a major deficit in housing, registered by the municipal architect José Granados de la Vega in an illustrative report. To address the issue, in the second half of the 20th century, many housing complexes are built, as o Grupo San Pablo, Barriada de la Ronda de San Agustín, Barriada de Santa Ana or de San Hermenegildo. The lack of schools was also a constant in the city, mitigated through the construction of schools by the Diputación Provincial or the Planes de Construcciones Escolares, with examples in El Valle, Miguel de Cervantes, Instituto San Fulgencio or the current Escuela Oficial de Idiomas.

Some people from Écija, with whom we spoke in 2024, highlight the relevance of education in Écija, both for local development and in the everyday experience of students or professionals. It was said that in the 1970s the demand for education in Écija increased and that the town council provided a bus so that students from nearby hamlets could go to school in “El Valle”. The importance of San Fulgencio Highschool is also mentioned, for the locality in general, as it is ‘where all the people from Écija, practically all generations of Écija, have studied’. It is also stated the good conditions of the SAFA centre. For the present, it was pointed some lack of educational centres and other types of services in Écija: ‘Écija has grown a lot and the facilities have become a little bit too small’ (secondary schools, nurseries, etc.). Finally, it was pointed out the necessity of fostering Professional Training, and not only university studies, as not all young people have the profile for a university career and society demands technical paths.