benet - Benedictine Educators' Network

The Database, Heinz Plugge

All over the world, there are about 193 Benedictine and Cistercian schools. All in all about 131 000 students are taught by about 8150 teachers. About 10 % of them are monastic teachers. This sheet shows us that the largest number of schools is still run in Europe. In the same sheet I've tried to call your attention to the lack of information we still have: When a school is in our database, then we have at least its name, country and location and in most cases we have further details like the telephone number, email and so on. As an example, I have put the focus on the number of students. "with information" in the sheet means, that we know about the school, but that we don't know, how up to date the information about this school is. And please notice too, that we have further information (for example about school type, age range and so on) for only some of the schools.	Distribution of Schools by Continent
The number of schools, the number of students and the number of teachers has increased significantly since the last conference in Sao Paulo, as you can see here. Of course this is not a real increase, but a consequence of the fact, that more and more schools have come to our notice.


In Europe there used to be a tradition to run a Benedictine school as a boarding school. This has clearly changed. Concerning Germany I can say, that there is a movement among the parents to send their children to a day school. As a consequence a lot of boarding schools are now open for day students or have completely been turned into day schools. Today we find larger numbers of boarding schools only in Europe and North America. Closely related to the question, whether a school is a boarding school or no, is the question, whether a school is a coeducative school. In most cases a boarding school is not coed.	Day School or Boarding School
It is important to be aware when you see this data, that we treat all schools that we have unsufficient information about as non coed. For this reason it is obvious, that only in Australia most of the schools are non coed. In all the other parts of the world the coed schools seem to have the majority.	Coeducation
The question, whether more girls or boys are among the students, is also a question of history of the Benedictines in the continents. In Australia most of the students are girls, in other countries the parts equals to another, the most boys among the students are in South America.	Percentages of female and male Pupils
Although the largest number of schools is in Europe, the perspective changes, if you focus on the number of students. The large schools on the Philippines make Asia gain the first place among the continents. Europe takes second place.	Number of Pupils per Continent
But regarding the number of teachers, Europe has the first place again. I find it astonishing to see, that North America and Asia seem to have the same number of teachers, although the number of students in Asia is so much higher. But please keep in mind, that the information in our database is incomplete. In reality the number of teachers in Asia and South America will be clearly higher. Another influence is not taken acount of yet: in various countries parts of the teaching staff won't do a full time job, which must have an effect on the numbers. It is interesting to see the number of pupils as related to the number of schools or the number of teachers:	Number of Teachers per Continent
The school systems in Europe and North America are very different from those in Asia and South America. In Europe there are more small schools with student numbers around 500; the schools especially in Asia are much larger. Schools in Europe are primary schools with an age range from 6 - 10 or secondary schools with an age range from 11 to 19, but schools in the Philippines or in South America often have an age range from 4 to over 20.	Average Number of Pupils per School
This sheet seems provocative, but there is certainly something wrong about it, because for a great number of schools in Africa, Asia and South America we do have an information about the number of students, but not about the number of teachers. This is the reason why the proportion seems so inadequate, especially for Africa. But the tendency is surely correct: the number of teachers in Australia, Europe and North America is on a good and high level, but I'm not sure whether we can be as happy with the situation in Africa and South America.	Average Number of Pupils per Teacher

Heinz-J. Plugge