Saint Francis School – Ghazir

School history

In view of remaining present at the native village of its Founder and next to his family house, the Congregation bought Saint Francis School in 2003 where he had studied and taught to make from the mustard seed a tree full of branches that shade his city of Ghazir and the region of Kesrouan-Ftouh.

Saint Francis School of Ghazir is composed of two buildings: an old one and a new one. The old building is a historical convent founded in the 11^th century, known as the Saint John Monastery and named “Deir El Souwar” (Convent of Pictures). Brother Isidore enlarged the new building, added two pavilions, and transformed it with his brothers into an orphanage for children, thus continuing his mission until 1956. Near the monastery, there was an old building composed of two rooms that Abouna Yaacoub used as a free school: the south hall for boys and the north hall for girls. He himself supervised the progress of the lessons and paid the salaries of the teacher.

The school today

It is a Lebanese Catholic school, whose mission is inspired from the Bible, the spirituality of Saint Francis of Assisi and that of Blessed Abouna Yaacoub. It also aims to link education to faith, to service, to the acquisition of knowledge and to the education of a person who communicates openly with others, who lives in his community exercising good citizenship and a professional productive life, thus contributing to the building up of the Church, of the homeland and of society, according to the values of faith, knowledge and freedom.

The school has qualified and experienced teachers, who are devoted to their teaching by carrying in their hearts and their words the precepts of the Founder Blessed Abouna Yaacoub, and his commands in education, aiming at transmitting them to the students from kindergarten to complementary classes. 

Despite the economic difficulties, the school provides its teachers with training in new active teaching methods, following the new teaching program, operating under the inspiration and directives of the General Secretariat of Catholic schools, and following regulations and laws issued by the Ministry of Education. In addition to teaching in Arabic, French and English from the third year of basic education, the school provides the following extracurricular activities: computers – drawing – music – physical activities – ballet.