Background:  St. Placidus’ Religious Seminary is a boy’s only secondary school, aimed at helping young men further their vocational pursuits within the Catholic Church. Our holistic approach to education is achieved by not only offering the ordinary curriculum of a secondary school, but also having our young men lead a monastic style of life by attending daily liturgy of the hours.The Seminary was founded in 1963 as an ordinary secondary school under the diocese, but since 1978 it has been a religious seminary under the leadership of Hanga Abbey.

Mission:  Our aim as a school is to produce well educated priests, monks, and Christians for the betterment of the Church and the people of God. Many of our graduates have gone on to become not only successful priests, monks and abbots, but also politicians, doctors, lawyers, etc.

Curriculum Offered:Alongside our religious aims, the Seminary school encompasses the typical secondary education in Tanzania (Forms 1-4). These four grade levels consist of a total of 182 students.  Our current curriculum covers of wide range of subjects including:  Kiswahili, English, Mathematics, Civics, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Geography, and Religion. Upon completing their second and fourth years at the Hanga Religious Seminary, our students sit for the National Exams, which will determine their future advancement in education. 

Students Projects:  Throughout the week, students are assigned jobs that help to build a sense of responsibility and appreciation for their environment and surroundings. These tasks include gardening, keeping livestock, cleaning the campus grounds, and other jobs that are designed to help maintain a healthy and sustainable environment. These work periods are scheduled into the weekly time table along with periods for the students to play sports, participate in clubs (Debate, English Club, Science Club, Brass Band, Choir, and Student Government), and have private study; utilizing the library located on campus.

Future Goals:  In the next few years we hope to begin offering the more advanced levels of secondary education, Forms 5 and 6.  Currently, we are not able to offer these advanced levels due to the fact that we don’t have the qualified teachers. Since the government schools take most of the degree holding teachers for their own use, the private schools are left with few options.  But due to the fact that there is no advanced level schools in the area, we feel that this is one of the most important goals for us as a school.Also since it’s foundation in 1963, our school has had no major repair done except for the fixing of the roof.  Therefore, we are in desperate need of updating our facilities.  Our main goals in updating our facilities are to fix the windows in our dormitories as to keep mosquitoes out and to exterminate the termites who are eating our books and furniture.

Recent News:  This past Spring, we were blessed to receive 2,500 books for our library.  These books were a gift from St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota through the Minnesota based organization, Books For Africa.  We are now one of few schools in the area with a modern library, and we are using these books to their full advantage.Since the addition of these books, our library has continually been filled to capacity during each study time.  Students have not only been using this books to supplement their current studies, but have also been using them to research foreign cultures and countries, something which was not possible before this gift.