We’ve received several of our secondary school (high school) students scores and we got mixed results. These are the students who are sponsored by Nice View Academy therefore we are paying their school fees and materials.
Most of the boys have done pretty well the second term – bringing in B’s while one student went from a B to a D (but we heard he had been sick most of the term). The girls however have not done as well. Most went from B’s to D’s and E’s. The reasons we heard were varied and some quite legitimate – one girl said she couldn’t see the board (we are sending her to an eye doctor), one said the work in the first term was mainly repetition of 8th grade and second term was new material so much harder.
Whatever the reason we had a talk with a few of the students to find out what happened and to encourage them to work hard. We emphasized that we could only do so much to help them with their education (getting books, glasses, etc.) but they would have to ultimately do the work to succeed.
Some girls do not feel education is important…they see their mothers (if they have one), aunts, grandmothers etc. who got married very early, had kids and that was their life. Now they see the same future for themselves so why bother with education. I’m praying and I ask for your prayers also that this is not the case with these girls. May they see the love of Christ in the opportunity of having an education, may they work hard at their studies and bring their grades up, may they resist temptation from others to forgo their studies to have fun. We explained to them the importance of a balanced life – yes study, yes have fun, yes socialize…all these things must be in balance with their main focus being their relationship with Christ. He is the one who will give them the strength to continue on.
In Nice View we also received Zone scores (zones are smaller than districts so approximately 34 schools in our zone). The students weren’t lower than position 4 in any of the Classes and Class 5 (5th grade) was in position 1! What a great achievement and I’m so proud of them…now for prayers they will continue working hard and keep up the scores as they end the school year in November and move forward in their classes in January.
Please also pray for our wisdom in this area…when do you tell a student “your grades aren’t holding up so we can’t pay for your school fees anymore” or how do you tell if a student isn’t putting in the effort? We’ve told many of them that sponsors from the US do not want to see failing grades and we expect better from them, but what if it’s just not in that student? Where do you draw the line? Not an easy place to be because I would love for all the students to WANT to do good, to WANT to succeed, to WANT nothing more than to please the Lord in their work but not everyone will feel that way so when do we say enough is enough?