Sint-Jan Berchmanscollege Mol

"After a certain stagnation of the Mol population in the middle of the 19th century, it experienced a real explosion at the turn of the century. A high school was deemed urgently needed. Liberal citizens from Mol campaigned for a state school around 1900 and Dean Joannes Cuypers started negotiations with the archdiocese. Despite the fear of competition from the College of Geel, an agreement was reached on 22 March 1900 in the diocese concerning the foundation of "une école française d'enseignement primaire supérieure". Land was purchased between Gasthuisstraat, Kerkhofstraat, Achterbosstraat and the later A. Reydamslaan and three classes were built on Gasthuisstraat and a small hall, the 'patronage', above it. Dean Cuypers appointed B. Sannen as the first teacher in the school and the diocese appointed 25-year-old priest Jan Peeraer. He was to be responsible for education, while the dean remained the actual administrator, especially as far as the financial situation was concerned. The school opened its doors on Wednesday, October 10, 1900. The secondary school of the Sint-Jan Berchmansgesticht started in 1903 under the direction of Jan Peeraer and received the active help of the municipality. The end of the First World War meant, also in Mol, the breakthrough of Christian-democratic, Flemish radical and social-democratic schools of thought. The population demanded more educational opportunities for their children. In 1921, the Mol city council significantly increased the annual allowance for the Sint-Jan Berchmansgesticht on condition that improvements would lead to a solid full secondary education. At the end of 1926, director Emile Van Hoof received permission from Cardinal Van Roey to start a Latin department. The city council then again increased its annual allowance and in the 1927-1928 school year, 24 students started the '6th Latin' for the first time. The Sint-Jan Berchmansgesticht now became the "Sint-Jan Berchmanscollege". Even before the language laws of 1932, classes in the Latin humanities in Mol were started in Dutch. In 1933-1934 there was also a Modern Humanities. From 1931 to 1987, the college received help from the Congregation of the Norbertian Sisters of the Convent of Nazareth, Mechelen who came to take care of the kitchen and housekeeping. (...) At the urging of the parents' association, founded in 1950, St. John Berchmans College decided to set up a humanities education for girls. A Department of Modern Humanities started in the premises of the Institute of Our Lady on the Rozenberg. In 1958, a Greco-Latin humanities department was added. This school was initially called Sint-Jan Berchmanscollege "classes for girls", was subsidized through the college and E.H. Leo Casteels of the college was formal director (until 1965). In 1964, the Sisters of Gijzegem took over the school under the name Heilig-Hartlyceum. (...) After years of preparations, the VSO was launched on 1 September 1982. A few years later it would turn out that this meant a decrease in the number of pupils. The controversy over type I and type II raged fiercely within free education and what was worse, quite a few schools used their so-called traditional education system as a major lure in the hunt for pupils. From the 1989-1990 school year, the unitary structure was introduced. That translated into a significant increase of 82 students, bringing the total to 699. Almost twenty years after the first teacher started working in SJB, the first girl pupils entered the college on 1 September 1991. In 1999, the last 'college priest' Karel Lommelen retired. In order to give new impetus to commercial education in Mol, the Board of Directors of the KSOM decided on a far-reaching collaboration between the Sint-Jan Berchmanscollege and the Salus Nostra Institute, coupled with a limited restructuring from 1 September 2005. The main framework of this restructuring was a gradual pedagogical, financial and administrative cooperation between the two schools. Both locations wanted to grow into one school under the name College. The locations were designated College Sint-Jan Berchmans in Mol-centrum and College Salus Nostra in Mol-Achterbos." (Hugo Cammaer. College Sint-Jan Berchmans, Mol-Centrum (1900-present). In: ODIS. Record last modified date: July 2, 2019. Available from World Wide Web: http://www.odis.be/lnk/OR_770

H.G.