On April 19, 2012, The Department of Education of The Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities (FPH) at the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik organized the 5th Scientific Day on "The Continuous Education and Professional Development of Teachers in Lebanon".

The Scientific Day included a presentation on the REFA Laboratory work (Recherches en Éducation pour la Formation et les Apprentissages) given by Prof. Norma Zakaria, Director of the Laboratory. She considered that the REFA Laboratory aimed to promote the field of research through cooperation between the various stakeholders in the Department of Education, i.e. Master and Ph.D. students and school instructors who are interested in educational research and didactics. “The laboratory covers both fundamental and applied research since it combines theory with practice”, she added. Prof. Zakaria also pointed out that the objective of this year’s theme "The Continuous Education and Professional Development of Teachers in Lebanon" was to integrate Ph.D. students in the field of research, make sustainable changes in the field of education, try to find solutions to problems that educational institutions in Lebanon suffer from, and finally shorten distances between researchers and practitioners; more particularly between theory and practice.

Prof. Hoda Nehme, Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities, stated, in her speech, that “… the creation of a research team within the Faculty, notably with the Department of Education, reflects an intellectual achievement and the openness of the educational team on themes that concern the international community of postmodern pedagogy”. She pointed out that the Faculty based its educational strategy on Kant’s famous quote: “Man can only become man through education”, and therefore, REFA concretized, through the themes it treated, its integration on the national and international level, in the problematic issue that is haunting the world of today: Education of the teacher.