Down under.

Next week, our school will be expecting 17 Australian students and four teachers. They will be staying at the school hostel for the whole week and at a foster home for one night. All these while, we expected them to be white but to our surprise, this morning a representative from the Education Ministry came and clarified that these students are actually from indigenous people. I could see the disappointment from some of the teachers as they are looking forward to seeing white Australian. It has never occurred to them to be meeting these indigenous people.

(google image)

Anyway, I'm grateful to have them at our school for one week as it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for my students to be subjected to an international event like this. In the past, according to the rep, this kind of program only involved cluster/elite schools. This is the first time ever for the embassy to choose a school (well, two schools actually-our school and one neighbouring school)  outside Klang valley to host this event. The embassy wants to expose the students to the schools that represent the real Malaysian student-life as well as to expose them to different ethnic groups in Malaysia. Our school represent the Malay community while the other school represent the others such as the Chinese and Indians.
   
 It's an honour for both of the schools to be hosting this event. There are lots of activities lined-up for them  hoping that it will be a meaningful endeavour for both schools and the Australian embassy.