Why write about the beginning of the school year now, almost a month after school has started? It’s because after all this time we have finally finished with the registration process and we now have final student numbers.

Four hundred and sixty-seven students!... a number of which we are very proud here at Padre Vjeko Center. This is the total number of students who will be attending our two schools, the Vocational Training Centre (VTC) and the Technical Secondary School (TSS). As you can well imagine, with all these students on the school compound, it gets very crowded and very noisy. It seemed that the registration went on for days and days, with students continuing to arrive, and we were beginning to ask ourselves “Is this ever going to stop?”

You see, in most places in the world lives are run by watches, but here in Africa, Africans have time. If an African says that they will be somewhere at 10 a.m., don’t expect that to happen… usually it will be at least an hour or so later. And it seems the same thing applies to dates. Even though the school year was scheduled to start on the 26th of January, students were coming for days and even weeks after, to make their applications… and all very relaxed, without any indication that they were concerned about being late, with the school year already started.

For them it was completely normal to turn up two weeks late and to ask for a study place in a particular section. So it was not easy to explain to them that there was no more place in that section because we had already reached our quota, and that they needed to choose some other section because, in fact, they were not on time, when for them there were not late! So the best thing when you are in Rwanda is not to have a definite “when” because the result is usually quite different than expected. If school registrations elsewhere are for a day or two, here in Rwanda it can go up to couple of weeks.

Moreover, this year also we needed to refuse some students because they were underage and we had to encourage them to go back to finish primary school rather than to study for a trade like they had hoped.

Thanks to the quality of education that our teachers are delivering to Padri Vjeko students, along with lots of practical experience - not only in school, but also during a practicum period - the very reason that our student registration increases yearly is because the Center is now becoming well recognized for our programs and good level of education.

There is an expression “a good reputation can carry far” and proof of this is that we have students coming from much larger places than Kivumu, where they have other possibilities, but they instead choose to attend Padre Vjeko Center.

Big news this year is that we have around 80 students who are now boarding in three houses that have been renovated thanks to the hard work of our teachers and second year students. As well as accommodation and food, the boarders enjoy an organized schedule for after-school study, with time for sport, music, dance and entertainment programs filling their free time.

We believe that we can look forward to yet another successful year ahead of us, and we wish all our students good results and good luck.

Translated by Doris Boroje<br />Edited by Valerie Kae Ken