Things are going ok here now that the end of the academic year school has come. The summer school has started but the teachers don’t feel that confident at teaching English thus they are focusing for these couple of weeks or so on general teaching. As a result, the numbers of pupils attending are a little low but we are anticipating this dramatically changing when the three volunteers come in about a week’s time !

The excellent news here is that the grade 4 pupils were busy practising for their end of year celebration when the educational bureau came and saw them practising their final goodbye speeches ( since the school only goes up to grade 4 – there are various licences available – a kindergarten one , a grade 1 – 4 one, a 5 – 8 one and a grade 9 and 10 licence. To get the grade 5 – 8 licence is complicated since it requires different things such as a separate laboratory room etc thus we didn’t even bother to try to apply. However, the government were so moved by the sad farewell practise of the students and the obvious regard we have for education ( they remarked that we were obviously interested in education rather than business ! ) that they said that they would consider making a special consideration on our behalf so that the grade 5 students can stay on.

As a result, the officials came to the school during the week to see if the rooms were big enough ( even though we do not have enough space let alone equipment for a laboratory ! ) and sure enough they were ! – the grade 5 kids were absolutely thrilled ! – with some of them crying with joy ! So its all systems go making it all ready ! - excellent !