The oldest building of a church school in Botevgrad municipality is located in the village of Bozhenitsa. It is 20 km north of the town of Botevgrad. Correspondence on church books and memoirs of older adults from the village mention that there were teachers there long before the construction of the church school. Due to frequent interruptions of educational activities over the years, the year 1806 is considered to be the beginning of education. At that time the building was built, and Stoyan Knezovski was appointed teacher. He was later ordained a priest. In 1834 the church of St. Petka was built on the old foundations of a ruined church. In the immediate vicinity is a building constructed in 1835, for a church school.
Most of the teachers were from Bozhenitsa and the surrounding villages. Teachers’ salaries were not high, so they received a certain amount of food from the students. From 80 to 100 children studied here, and some of them came from the surrounding villages. Initially, the Enlightenment was based only on religious subjects – Hourglass, Psalter and Holy, and later it included a primer with writing and mathematics. There were no distinct classes. The teacher showed each student the lesson individually, and Saturday was a day for revision. There was no break. In winter – noon, and in summer – lunch, which lasted 1-2 hours. Classes lasted 2-3 hours. The discipline was harsh; it was supervised not only by the teacher but also by the students on duty. The punishments were standing by the wall, standing on kneels, beating with a stick on the hand, on the legs, plucking the hair. There was a place under the desk for the guiltiest student. The students themselves did the cleaning.
The school building burned down in 1855, and a new one was built in its place in 1880, existing to this day, which functioned successfully until 1943.
In 2006, with funds from the residents of the village and the Municipality of Botevgrad, the school was restored and arranged as a museum collection, a branch of the History Museum of Botevgrad.
Address: Village of Bozhenotsa
