Ateneo junior high takes first steps to be co-ed
The Ateneo de Manila is set to open its doors to female students in junior high school, a week after the Jesuit-run university welcomed young girls in Kindergarten and Grade 1 as it moves to implement full co-education by 2029.
Ateneo’s University and Communications Office confirmed to the Inquirer that the junior level of its high school had also accepted female enrollees for this school year.
“Entry level at junior high school, Grade 7, will also welcome girls on Aug. 9, [their] first day of classes for SY (school year) 2004-2005,” the office said on Friday.
On Thursday, Ateneo de Manila Grade School said a total of 200 female students for SY 2024-2025 became the pioneering batch of girls admitted to its elementary school.
“History was made today, August 1, as Ateneo de Manila Grade School welcomed girls in Kindergarten and Grade 1 for the first time in our school’s nearly 165-year history,” the university said on its Facebook account.
“The red-letter day saw administrators and teachers donning colorful costumes and headdresses to support the community’s youngest learners,” it added.
Another milestone
This year’s batch of students in elementary and junior high marks another milestone for the university, which had been educating boys and young men for almost two centuries since it was established in 1859.
Ateneo first began to accommodate co-education when it accepted female college enrollees beginning with school year 1973-1974.
Decades later, its senior high school was opened to female students in SY 2016-2017.
According to the university, the new milestone fulfills Ateneo’s “Lux-in-Domino Strategic Plan 2030” issued in September 2022 by its president, Fr. Roberto Yap.
It states that a “strategic targeted growth” of Ateneo’s student population should be undertaken, by introducing “student diversity [and] granting female students access to the Ateneo de Manila basic education schools.”
Ateneo said its goal by SY 2029-2030 is full implementation of co-education in its basic education, as Yap had also announced in February last year.
