OCS which stands for Oil Companies School was established in the late 1950s by a group of American parents who wanted to educate their children while working and living in Tripoli, Libya. Not much information is available to us about the early days. In the late 1950s there where two groups of American families, those working in the US Military (Wheelus Air Force base or other..) and those working for the Oil sector. The Oil sector in Libya was primarily Occidental Petroleum (OXY). You can find some photo of the old OCS campus here.

Personally, I attended OCS from 1982 until 1985. The only major event I witnessed was the transition of OCS from an American to a Canadian system. In 1981, Reagan ordered all US workers in Libya to leave the country and as a result we saw all of our American friends and teachers leave in exodus and suddenly (1982) all the teachers were Canadian. I recall it was difficult for everyone. Some teachers had been at OCS for a very long time with their kids born and raised in Libya.

In 1984, OCS started offering 10th grade and I was one of the first students to study in this program. The 1984-85 year was a lot of fun as the 9th and 10th graders were all one gang.

I visited the OCS campus in 1995 and found that everything was still the same, the class rooms, the gym (built in 1982), the lockers, even the water fountains by the junior-high washrooms were still there. I asked about the gate keeper known as "Mohammed" and was told that he had passed away in 1993. Most of you probably remember Mohammed as he has been guarding the OCS gates for decades.

In April of 1986, the US Reagan administration ordered the bombing of the Libyan cities of Tripoli and Benghazi. Shortly after the bombing, the Oil Companies School was renamed to "College of US Aggression Martyrs" which is now known as CUSAM. The campus is still very much the same. I have a young sister who studies there now in the 4th grade.

We hope to add more details on the history of OCS as the information becomes available. Please feel free to e-mail us with more facts and photos of OCS.

If you spot any errors in the page above, please send us your corrections.