LORETO EDUCATION BOARD, SOUTH ASIA PROVINCE
The Loreto tradition of education draws its inspiration from the vision of
the Institute’s Founder, the Venerable Mary Ward, who believed that “women
in time to come will do much”. The Loreto ideal of education seeks to
empower women through its values of Freedom, Sincerity, Justice and Joy.
In 1821 an Irish nun by the name of Mother Teresa Ball, founded the first
House of the Institute in Ireland. From here, in 1841, a group of intrepid
nuns led by the twenty-three-year-old Mother Delphine Hart, brought the
Institute to India and in January 1842 Loreto House, a premier girls’
school, was established in erstwhile Calcutta. Simultaneously the Loreto
Sisters began teaching the poor children in Moorgihatta, near the
Portuguese Cathedral in Kolkata. Imparting quality education to girls from
all sections of society, irrespective of class or community, and reaching
out to the least and the last in society, remain the ethos of all Loreto
schools in the region.
India was the first overseas mission of the IBVM and there has been no
looking back since then. From India, in response to the needs of the times,
Loreto moved to Nepal and Bangladesh and today the Loreto Sisters in South
Asia run and administer -
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15 mainstream schools- Loreto House, Loreto Convent Entally, Loreto Day
Schools Bowbazar, Dharamtalla, Elliot Road and Sealdah in Kolkata, Loreto
Convent Shimla, Loreto Convent, Delhi Cantt., Loreto Intermediate College,
Lucknow, St. Agnes’ Loreto Day School, Lucknow, Loreto Convent, Ranchi,
Loreto Convent, Asansol, Loreto Convent, Darjeeling, St. Teresa’s Girls’ HS
School, Darjeeling and Loreto Convent, Shillong
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7 mission schools- Loreto Schools in Lolay, Panighatta, Sadam (in
Sikkim) and Dharan (in Nepal), Loreto St. Vincent’s School, Thakurpukur,
St. Alfred’s Bangladesh and Loreto Nursery school, Dhaka
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1 post- graduate college- Loreto College, Kolkata
In addition to this, several of the mainstream schools successfully run
Out- reach programmes on the school campus.
Pushpa Vidyalaya in St. Agnes’ Loreto Day School, Lucknow has 12 trained
lay staff and a Sister in-charge; a tailoring class has been introduced for
girls of Classes VII-IX. Students now appear for the Class X, UP Board
examination.
Jagriti Loreto Vidyalaya, Loreto Convent, Lucknow- has a staff of 13.
Health camps are organised and a Computer lab has been set up in the
school; students also use the Home Science lab in Loreto Convent and take
part in the Annual Sports. The school has been extended till Class X and
runs a Vocational Training Centre too.
Ankur Vidyalaya, Asansol-a Literacy Centre, has 3 teachers and a
coordinator. They are taught about health & hygiene along with the 3
R’s and the Centre forms the Each One Teach One programme of Loreto
Convent; classes in Ankur Vidyalaya extend from Nursery to NIOS; both
schools collaborate in several projects and the school also runs a
Vocational Training Centre.
The Literacy Centre in Loreto House has two teacher volunteers to teach
poor students from the neighbourhood; senior students also take classes.
The goals of the Loreto Education Board were drawn up at a meeting
commissioned in 2011 and its chief tenets are as follows-
To achieve the objective of quality education for all, the Loreto Education
Board monitors uniform curriculum transaction and the smooth functioning of
these institutions by organising workshops, orientation programmes for
staff, annual summits for Principals and school leaders and school
evaluations. Loreto South Asia Policy manuals are periodically updated in
keeping with global trends in education. “Keeping our focus fixed”, Loreto
education draws its bearings from Jesus, His gospel and the Mary Ward
charism, to ensure a holistic, value- based education based on the
principles of Catholic Social teaching, thereby enabling students from all
faiths and cultures to experience God as the true source of humanity, the
One in whom they “live and move and have their being”.
BE SEEKERS OF TRUTH ANDS DOERS OF JUSTICE