BEIRUT: Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai hailed Tuesday teachers for raising children for a better future, stressing Lebanon was in dire need for “loyal citizens.”

“Today you are preparing generations of good citizens through whom Lebanon can get out of its ordeal,” Rai told a student delegation from the St. Anthony secondary school in Zgharta, north Lebanon.

The delegation was headed by Sister Rola Karam.

“We are fed up of [political] divisions in Lebanon. This is why I urge you [teachers] to raise real men, teaching them how to be humane and patriotic,” Rai said.

He strongly criticized political divisions and called for educating pupils without politics interfering in the scholastic development.

“No one can build communities but educators; and Lebanon is in desperate need for real and honest education with no [political] affiliations,” Rai told the delegation that visited him in Bkirki.

“Lebanon is in dire need for loyal, intellectual citizens with ethics,” he stressed.