Kenya conference prayers fulfilled.

 

Before we went to Kenya, we prayed for networking and training that would empower us in the tasks God has given us. Boy, did He ever answer that prayer!!!

 

You see, the Academy is seeking accreditation.

That is not so unusual. Most schools eventually seek national or international credibility.

 

Is the challenge that we are seeking to be a CHRISTIAN school?

I don’t think so, for the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI) who put on the conference in Kenya serves some 5000 Christian schools in over 100 countries, and helps a lot of them with getting local or national  accreditation. The ACSI offers its own accreditation as well, under the national guidelines.

 

The challenge is being INTERNATIONAL.

 

The way most schools deal with international students is to tell them that the school is offering American/French/British/etc. national curriculum, and the students simply have to deal with it. Up until now, our school has offered American education. This means that graduating seniors could go to American universities. They were not qualified to go to African, European or Australian colleges, because of the fact that those systems demand vocational emphasis for the last two or three high school years, whereas the US system maintains a broad education for 12 years. While a serious student can pursue his or her interest in math, science, literature, or other focus, often taking college-level classes, the high schools generally offer standard 5-strand coursework. This does not correlate to other countries’ educational systems.

 

Up until now our school could only offer American curriculum, because we change location every year, and the testing sites for European systems (like the British GCSE) were not reasonably available to us.

 

Is it righteous that families from all over the world should give up their homeland lives to serve in Africa, and find that their children become American?

 

We don’t think so.

Yet that is what often seems to happen. Serious students from our Academy end up in American or Canadian universities because the school is structured on the American curriculum. They often take jobs in America and settle there, far from their family and home culture.

 

We don’t think that is fair.

In Kenya God enabled us to interface with schools across Africa that are using British curriculum at the 9^th and 10^th grade levels with international tests (IGCSE) at the end of 10^th grade that allow the students to continue on in their own nation’s educational system. We can apply to have the ship be a testing center (not possible for the other national tests).

 

What an answer to prayer! The curriculum is a bit demanding, which means that American students will benefit by high-level education. We will use the test as we do final exams. Normally our final exams cover the year’s material. We will use the international grade 10 test to replace the grade 10 final exam, and it will cover 2 years’ study. Like the final, it will count 20% of the year’s grade. Thus an American student will continue on as usual, and the European or African or Australian student will be ready to go on in his or her speciality.

 

I am heading the English curriculum committee, and am responsible to develop a language arts curriculum that is founded in biblical worldview and will satisfy the needs of all our student body. What a challenge!

 

At the conference I received in-depth training from people from several different countries in how to do just that. Most of them have a national curriculum they follow. They are willing to help us develop an international curriculum.

 

God is remarkable. What a wonderful answer to prayer! How He loves His missionary families!

 

I am so grateful, for I feel profoundly unfit for this immense task.