Bourj International College

BIC is committed to prepare every student to deal effectively with the personal, interpersonal career and educational issues. We prepare students to be lifelong learners, citizens and workers which is the major challenge of public education today. We prepare students to live and work in our ever changing increasingly global and technological world. They must be able to think critically and creatively, solve problems, retrieve and manage information and communicate effectively. In a context of rapid and constant social cultural economic and geographical and technological changes, we provide physical and intellectual access to the vast amount of information and ideas needed for teaching learning. Our mission is to raise every student’s high academic excellence, student centeredness and firm them as future leaders in a diverse world.

The BIC pre-school program addresses the whole child through an integrated approach and aims to develop a close relationship between educators, parents and classmates. All content is taught using the target language of Arabic and English. The learning environment provides learning opportunities that allow every student to achieve excellence. Moreover, it builds a bridge between the students’ prior knowledge and the curriculum. Through the curriculum, students learn about their own culture, traditions, needs and responsibilities, and gain knowledge of their society. They learn to demonstrate appropriate behaviors associated with norms and values such as friendliness, honesty, caring, respect, and responsibility. Students work towards becoming independent learners.

The pre-school staff aims to stimulate the learning of concepts, skills, attitudes and content, while simultaneously nurturing the development of the language skills. We believe that children learn best through play – oriented activities during which they use concrete, multi-sensory experiences in a safe and secure environment.

In order to promote the development of the whole person, all programs (or the whole curriculum) aim to develop personal qualities and skills leading to intellectual curiosity, effective communication, creative expression, community building, good citizenship and an appreciation for cultural diversity.

Through our curricular and extracurricular activities, we aim to achieve educational integration by producing a conscious and awareness to our students of what is happening around, in a systematic and organized way of thinking.

The curricular activities aim to provide students with information through group and individual projects, which fix concepts and make them gain many skills that increase their self-confidence. Additionally, they become more responsible so they discover on their own what they have learned in class and that it is related to their daily lives.

In addition to the academic education, we provide students with artistic, athletic and healthy activities that enrich their souls and bodies. Moreover, social services for institutions that are concerned with children’s issues, aged people, disabled people and people with special needs are offered. Such services create within the student’s personality the sense of humanity, sharing and tolerance.

As for trips, it includes all the territories in order to know our Lebanese heritage and different cultures. Each class’s activity is according to his age group, curriculum level and lesson themes, in addition to environmentally friendly activities.

All this can contribute to build a good citizen that appreciates friendships, cooperation, charity and good deeds. It contributes as well to build a well educated, creative, and ambitious generation that is open to the diversity of all cultures in the world – respect and appreciate them.

It all started in the mid 80s during a period of time when Lebanon was passing through an unstable political, social and economical status. As a result of this bad situation, rural areas in Lebanon especially southern suburb of Beirut became over populated in the presence of many factors such as displacement and exodus from towns to cities.

Accordingly, most of the people in the southern suburb of Beirut were trying to get a better education and to stay up to date to all the changes and developments that are occurring in the new century. During that period, a great number of schools and educational institutions in the area opened but it wasn’t enough for the big number of students who are applying for schools. This pushed many families to send their children out of the southern suburb to get the best education. So, the idea of establishing the BIC came out from the need of people who were seeking providing their children with a high level of education.

We started preparing to build this institution after we had the territory and the money. In 1993 the first building was established and a group of qualified teachers, administrators and other staff were recruited. In 1994, the opening of the school took place with the presence of the departed minister Asaad Diab who was the president of the Lebanese university at that time, in addition to the presence of many other public figures.

Our plan started by opening the kindergarten department in addition to cycle 1 and cycle 2. With the encouragement of many supportive people, and the dedication of the administrative staff and teachers, the Bourj International College grew and the number of classes increased. It also became an outstanding high school for the great results that our students achieved in the official exams, and the good reputation at the disciplinary, educational and ethical level in all grades.