Don Bosco Technical Institute in Tarlac City (formerly, Don Bosco Academy), or simply Don Bosco Tarlac, is a private Catholic school for pre-school, grade school and junior high school boys. In 2016, it opened its co-educational senior high school department. The first ever Don Bosco school in the Philippines, it is the only academic-technical school in Tarlac. Its campus is located in Sto. Cristo, Tarlac City, Philippines for Nursery to Grade 10 and in Cresendo Downtown, Central, Tarlac City for Grades 11 and 12.
This school has been named after St. John Bosco whom the Church has proclaimed Father and Teacher of the Youth. He dedicated his life to teaching. To continue this work, he founded a religious society of priests and brothers – the Salesians of Don Bosco (SDB).
Don Bosco Tarlac was opened in 1947 in the rented Oriente Hotel by Fr. James Wilson, an American army chaplain at Clark Air Base concerned with the Catholic education of the youth of Tarlac. Because of his devotion to the saint, he named his school St. John Bosco Academy. It transferred to its present site in Brgy. Sto. Cristo in 1948. In 1951, the school received its first Salesian, Fr. Anthony di Falco, SDB. From then onwards, it received a steady stream of Salesians who continued to improve the school. It started its technical curriculum in 1974 and four years later came to be known as Don Bosco Technical Institute. From a student population of 80 in 1947, it has grown to around more than 2,000 students at present.
The first Salesian educational institution, St. John Bosco Academy, was founded in 1947 in Tarlac. A second institution was established in 1952 at Victorias, Negros Occidental, and was followed by other schools in Mandaluyong in 1953, in Cebu and in Makati in 1954 and eventually in Bacolor, Pampanga in 1956.
The Don Bosco Technical Institute is made up of the Educative Pastoral Community. Its main components are the Salesians, the teaching and non-teaching personnel, the alumni, the parents, and the students. The Salesian spirit gives to the institution its lifestyle, its way of doing things. One element is the Family Spirit. Being an educational institution, it has a system of education called the preventive system. This system rests on the pillars of religion, reason, and loving kindness.
Get to know more about the first Don Bosco setting in the Philippines by going through some trivia about us.
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