The Jesuit Education and its Characteristics

The Jesuit education is more than 450 years old tradition. The aim of Jesuit education is the formation of principled, value-oriented persons for others after the example of Jesus Christ. Teaching in a Jesuit institution, therefore, is a ministry. For a holistic and comprehensive Jesuit education, certain attitudes, values, and patterns of behavior join together to become what has been called the Jesuit way of proceeding. The characteristics of “our way of proceeding” were born in the life of St. Ignatius of Loyola and shared by his first companions.There are twenty-nine characteristics of Jesuit education that are divided into nine sections. Each section begins with a statement from the Ignatian vision, and is followed by the characteristics that are applications of the statement to education.

The Characteristics of Jesuit Education can be summarized in a picture form as follows:

In short, Jesuit education tries to instill a ‘joy in learning’ and a ‘desire to learn’ that will remain beyond the days in schools or colleges. Therefore, the success of Jesuit education is measured not in terms of academic performance of students or professional competence of teachers, but rather in terms of the quality of life imparted.