Ahliah School

Ahliah School develops young minds to their best abilities, while nurturing self-confidence, respect, compassion, creativity, a joy for learning and working collaboratively within a diverse environment. Ahliah graduates are primed to take responsibility for their future and to be active citizens engaged in local, regional, and global issues.

Employing qualified teachers who are knowledgeable and able to employ appropriate learning tools and follow suitable methods that render the learning process accessible to students. A curriculum that is designed to foster continuous acquisition of knowledge and critical thinking and prepares the students to enter Lebanese, regional and international universities. Providing a continuous professional development program. Academic support programs constructed to cater to individuals and small groups within the broader curriculum.

The creation of curricular and extra-curricular activities and programs that allow students to be active participants in society and who serve as role models in exhibiting self-assurance, tolerance and self-respect. Ensuring parental and community involvement to safeguard society from the adverse effects of a rapidly changing value system. A comprehensive guidane and counceling program that caters for the different student's social, emotional.

In 1916, when the Ottoman authorities ordered the closing of foreign schools, Mary Kassab gathered in her home sixteen boys and girls who were enrolled at the British School and pledged to ensure their continuing education. As soon as she started her modest work, parents of all walks of life began to send their children to her, and that was the nucleus of Ahliah School.

The following year, sixty students were enrolled, and Mary Kassab was authorized to open a national, non-denominational and co-educational school.

With the help of her brother Aziz and two of his friends, Boulos Khawli and Anis Makdissi, she formed a board of trustees. The board started to raise funds from Lebanese and Arab residents and Lebanese emigrants and were able to purchase the present campus of Ahliah from the Scottish mission.

Among the donors were: Some of Ahliah’s teachers; King Faysal 1 of Iraq; Doctor Bayard Dodge, President of the American University of Beirut; Ahmad Amin Bey, Prime Minister of Syria; Sheikh Taj El-Din Al Hussayni, Head of the Syrian State; Mrs Nazira Jumblat; Jibran Khalil Jibran; Amin Al-Rihani; May Ziadeh; Emir Said Al-Jazayri; Bishop Raphael Nimr; The Sacred Heart Association; The Young Muslim Association; Doctor Youssef Hitti; Bishop Boulos Khoury; Aziz Shukri & George Kassab; Doctor Fares Nimr; and many others.

Under the French Mandate in Lebanon, the activities of Ahliah were genuinely nationalistic. The school embraced the new scouting movement which included all Lebanese children. It was the first of its kind in the Arab World. Alice Abkarios at Ahliah undertook the translation of the scouting rules into Arabic.

The Mandate authorities tried to tighten their control over the school and in 1924, they ordered its closing. The students (predominantly girls) organized a rally and walked into the Government Palace to defend the cause of the school before the High Commissioner. Ultimately the French authorities yielded to pressures and repealed the decision.

In 1950, Mary Kassab School became Ahliah Girls’ College. Boys were admitted at the elementary level only. During this time, Ahliah became one of the foremost educational institutions in the country. This achievement was made possible through the efforts of its Board of Trustees, which included prominent members of the intellectual, educational and social elite of the country, and through the dynamic leadership of its second principal, Mrs. Wadad Al Makdissi Cortas, who took office in 1935. Mrs. Cortas who was keen to diversify the educational programs and activities of the school, devoted much attention to culture and art in the school’s mission. She created different programs and streams for girls to follow and introduced extracurricular education through the daily assemblies (dar al Ijtima’a) during which, prominent members of the community and visitors to Lebanon, such as Kwala Nehru (Mother of Indira Gandhi), Helen Keller, Howard Bliss, Bayard Dodge, Lynn Harris, Mary Woods, in addition to a number of people from Europe that included members of parliaments, politicians, and others, addressed the students on different timely topics.

In 1939, The school hosted the Association of Amateur Musicians led by Alexis Butros to involve Ahliah students in music and later, started with him at the school, a program for performing arts that included choreographic dancing, ballet and drama. These programs became the nuclei of the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (ALBA), founded by Alexis Butros in 1944 with Wadad Cortas being its General Executive Secretary. The Ahliah choir, now incorporated into the ALBA choir performed 99 classical concerts in Lebanon as well as in Jerusalem, Cairo and Istanbul. During this period, the school attracted students from all over the Arab world and foreign students whose parents wanted them to study in a mixed environment rather than in a uniform community school such as the American or British Community Schools then. The school students consisted of 27 nationalities in the 1960s.

Spurred by the excellent reputation of the school in Lebanon and abroad, enrollment increased dramatically. As the school needed additional space, the Ahliah campus was gradually expanded with the addition of appropriate facilities to meet the needs of the students.

Ahliah became a focal point in Lebanon and for all kinds of educational activities. Prominent researchers and scholars were invited to come and talk to the students. And when the Ford Foundation equipped the school’s science laboratories as a model, Ahliah opened its doors to other schools in Lebanon and made available to them the vast resources of its audio-visual library.

In those days the image of the Ahliah student, dressed in navy pleated blue skirt, white shirt and navy blue scarf, became well known as the prototype of the modern and enlightened young Arab girl.

The school outreached the community through the well-attended Wednesday weekly Mujaddara lunches to which prominent local and foreign panelists were invited to discuss controversial issues with the public. The proceeds went to support vocational training in the Palestinian camps and as of the 1990s, the event became annual and supports the school development and financial aid fund.