Connecting foreign and Indian Jesuit Institutions as Academic Partners
Out of the six regions of the Global Network of Jesuit Schools, South Asia is home to the majority of Jesuit schools in the world. Of the 845 schools worldwide, there are 399 schools in South Asia, 391 of which are in India, 5 in Nepal and 3 in Pakistan. There are about 400,000 students and more than 12,000 teachers in this region.
The rich history of schools in this region takes us back to the 16th century Jesuit Missions to the East. St. Francis Xavier was the first Jesuit missionary to set foot in India. Francis, one of St. Ignatius’ first Companions was sent as a missionary to Asia and was appointed by the Pope Paul III apostolic nuncio to the East. Upon his arrival to Goa, the capital of Portuguese India, in 1542, Xavier decided that he must begin by instructing the Portuguese themselves, and gave much of his time to the teaching of children. He was invited to head Saint Paul’s College, a pioneer seminary at the time, for the education of secular priests, which became the first Jesuit headquarters for missionary activity in Asia.
The education missions of Jesuits by main regions in India:
All Jesuit educational institutions in South Asia are members of the Jesuit Educational Association (JEA). The JEA (legal title: Jesuit Conference of India-Educational Section) was constituted in 1961 with the aim of providing Jesuits with a forum of reflection on the educational apostolate of the Society in the context of changing conditions in South Asia. The secretariat, assisted especially by the Province/Region Coordinators of Education, seeks to animate Jesuit educational institutions to a deeper understanding of the Jesuit vision in Education especially through the implementation of the Characteristics of Jesuit Education and Ignatian Pedagogy. This entails enabling the institutions to be rooted in the local context, to network with like-minded institutions and be instruments of social change.