Fr. Pascoal Lobo started a
small boarding for the boys in Quepem, an insignificant place in South Goa in
the early sixties. His dream was to help in the education of the people of
Quepem. But his work received greater impetus when Fr. Edwin D’Souza, aka,
Swami Premanand Naik Salgaonkar took over in 1965. He renamed the school Pope
John XXIII High School and tried his best to assist the very poor and orphaned
boys together with his hard working helpers of the institution. The school
rendered yeoman service in the field of education during the initial years of
Goa’s liberation.
Fr. Edwin worked as an educator of the abandoned for 20 years. Every past pupil remembers him with gratitude and extols his sense of dedication and discipline in educating them. He ensured that education catered to the needs of the downtrodden, the orphans, and the destitute not only from Goa, but even from the other parts of India. He passed away, after a brief illness on the 27th of October, 1996.
However, a few years before his death, he realized that the work of education of the marginalized has to be continued. He therefore called in the Salesians to help him to run the institution, with the possibility of taking it over. Thus, in 1985, Fr. Edwin entrusted the Boys’ Town Complex, Premnagar, Quepem Goa to the Salesians of Don Bosco. It was his admiration for the Salesian system of education that urged him to make this move. Fr. Loddy Pires, the then Salesian Provincial of the Bombay Province of St Francis Xavier gratefully accepted the offer with the assurance that it would continue to be in the best interest of the poor and the abandoned youth of Goa.
Thus, Salesians arrived in Quepem on May 24, 1985. Fr. Lionel Braganza was put in charge with veteran Salesians such as Fr. Cajetan Lobo and Fr. Benedict Furtado to assist him and clerics Dominic Savio Fernandes and Lorenzo D’Souza, the first practical trainees. During these years the Boys’ Town Complex was introduced to the Salesian method of education and administration.
In the year 1991, the institution was selected as the first centre in Goa, for the National Open School with three courses - the Bridge, Secondary and the Senior Secondary Courses. Today it is one of the main centres in Goa and the total strength of the students touches almost 300.
By 1993, the institution grew in order to offer better educational facilities not only to the inmates but also to the youth in and around Quepem. Fr. Elias Dias was the second Rector. Fr. Michael Mascarenhas, who was the third Salesian Rector and Principal, combined energetic action with discipline. His efforts enabled the complex to develop into what is today called “Don Bosco Ganv.”
Meanwhile, academically, the high school did better and in 1995, a new wing was added to the institution to accommodate the growing numbers. The Higher Secondary Section with the Arts and Commerce streams was also started in 1993. The Science stream was started in 2009.
Besides the High School and the Higher Secondary, Don
Bosco Ganv can boast of the first accredited NIOS Open School in Goa started in
1991, a non-formal vocational training institute at Kanagal farm catering to
poor, rural/tribal boys, a flourishing Oratory for the neighbourhood, and
various Social Development programmes in the remote villages of Quepem and
Canacona taluka. The institution also conducts supervised non-formal activities
with the help of the Salesian Cooperators and the Past Pupils.
