Are the Bulape Schools Failing? (Day 49, September 9, Tuesday)

My first day in Bulape was typical. Lots of visitors from our various partners coming by to say their hello, welcome, and prayer. Also, most of visits were to schedule an appointment for me to brief them. The doctors have three surgeries starting at 6am, day break and before the heat. The operating room is not air conditioned. After the surgeries just before 11am, I heard the BUV arrive outside of the guest house. It was Dr Joseph, still in his scrubs including hat and mask, driving the BUV. He was being followed hundreds of kids. Officially, he just came by to see how I was doing and to say hello. But I think he just wanted a reason to drive the BUV. Before I could get my camera he was gone. This time he loaded the BUV with kids and drove through the village. Bulape will never be the same. I asked Justin about how his students faired on the state examination. Justin is headmaster of the girls school along with being our translator and our Congo Project Coordinator. He did not have the results of the examination Why, they were released on Saturday? They are only available via the internet. Duh! In a country with very limited or non-existent access to the internet outside of cities, why would they only post the results online? Jokers? Non of the headmasters in Bulape had their results. I went to the website and were greeted by picture of President Kabila. The results were posted in various PDF-formatted files. Finding the right list for your examination type proved to be confusing and a waste of access time. If your students took the Math examination you needed to download the entire Math list, then you would search through it to find the school. Only passing students are listed. The same process is needed for each type of examination (Latin, Chemistry, etc.). We will finish this project tomorrow. Bulape Institute (split between I and II) was on the list of schools that supposedly did not have a student passing any examination. We need get all the lists to verify if this true. If it is true, we have lots of work to do to improve education system in the village.