5 Years of the Partner School Initiative in Lebanon – What’s Next?
2016/2017

PASCH students spent an entire day with their parents, school directors, teachers and decision-makers at the Ministry of Education discussing their future with German.
On 17 November 2016, the future lab was held for the next 5 years of PASCH – amidst an art exhibition at the STATION Arts and Cultural Centre in Beirut. At the conclusion of the one-day workshop, the twenty participants presented their visions, wishes and demands for the future with German to Lebanese bloggers, as well as decision-makers and multipliers from all levels of Lebanese society.

All PASCH stakeholders agreed: Lebanon needs to keep on pasching! Even closer cooperation with Germany in the form of a ‘German-Lebanese quality circle for transcultural teacher training’ was one of the main demands, and the participants of the future workshop were unanimous in their call for more German study programmes and increasing the total number of PASCH schools in the country to at least five. There will be a lot to do in the coming years to qualify additional German teachers and to continue to expand the highly successful programme.

The PASCH schools in Beirut, Saïda and Dhour El Choueir are to be developed into learning hubs to encourage studies of German in the surrounding areas.

The PASCH initiative took up its work in Lebanon in 2010; three schools from the state sector were selected which distinguished themselves not only with excellent teaching but also with their comprehensive character-building efforts. The Goethe-Institut in Lebanon qualified a total of 9 English and French teachers in a one-year course, who then helped with the introduction of German as a subject at the secondary level of the state school system for the very first time 5 years ago. Today, more than 1,000 young students are learning German in the public school system.