Hellenizing Libya
By admin • Aug 4th, 2009Frustrated at the network of empty Greek schools no longer serving the Middle East’s depleted Greek communities, Mandolios offered Benghazi’s school building to Benghazi European School (BES). In one stroke, the Greek school was converted into an international educational establishment.
Today, it boasts first-world facilities and equipment, tennis, basketball courts and spacious classrooms.
“When you walk into here, you forget you’re in Libya,” said Gisela Vejmelek, an Austrian expat engineer who sent her children to BES. For BES, its present surroundings mark a long journey from a humble start in 1999, when a $70,000 grant by a Cretan trustee and six pupils taught inside two prefabricated living containers set out on an ambitious experiment.
The timing was propitious. Less than four years after the school opened, Libyan President Muammar Gadhafi announced in an address to the world that his country would accept the terms for lifting the international embargo that had kept it isolated for nine years and arrested its growth.
At the moment, 65 students from 40 nationalities (speaking 12 languages) attend the school. By 2011, the school will have 100 pupils, taught by a mixture of Libyan university professors, foreign full-time staff, and expat wives moonlighting as occasional teachers.
Staff members admit the result has been as positive as it could be “in a loose environment regarding discipline and homework.” Many of the students go on to study in British or Canadian universities, or Tripoli’s elite but ramshackle Fatih University.
