Schooling and Youth Group

We are really settling into Pokhara and loving it here. It is an incredibly beautiful place. We have been living in a house with two other couples from the mission. They have now left and we are in a six bedroom house on our own!! There are lots of people who come through for meetings and they will stay here. Anyone reading this is also welcome to stay!!!
One has to talk about schooling and youth group here. There are now to be no complaints about what it is like in NZ.
Parents and students have the choice of going to either a private or public school. Anyone who can pays for their children to go privately as the quality is much better than the public system. The private system, minus Nepali lessons, is taught in English. In the public schools it is all taught in Nepali.
The children in the public school start going when they are 5 years old and can go up to school leaving certificate which is 15. They don’t have uniforms.
The private schools start at 3 years of age and then formal education starts at aged 6. They start exams at the age of 10 which they have to pass in order to go up to the next class. Once you have achieved a school leaving certificate at aged 16 you can then do another two years of education not available in public schools to get a higher school leaving certificate that enables you to attend university. The parents are told that in order for the children to pass their exams when the child is a teenager they have to attend the boarding school. If the children don’t attend the teachers ignore the students ensuring that they fail. Boarding fees are expensive and hard to parents to pay. They have uniforms similar to Catholic schools in NZ from the age of 5.
In both systems school starts at 8.30 to 9am and goes until about 3pm after which most students have tuition in order to pass the exams they have to sit. They attend school 6 days a week although Fri is only from 9am until 1pm. There is no school on Saturdays which here is the day that people attend the temple or church.
Youth group starts at 6am on a Saturday with a bible study. Teaching begins at 8.30 and then the youth join in the main service at 10am. There is often a bible study during the week as well.