September 2022 Update
A Message From Varney Freeman (Director of BMI)
To God be the glory, great things He has done, great things He is doing and greater things He will do. The Vocational Education program at BMI is growing and taking shape year after year. Again, at the end of this past school year (2021/ 2022), the teaching staff met in an end of the year meeting to evaluate ourselves.
We believe that BMI Vocational education program is making progress, yet there is more work to be done to get at a full level at where we want to be with the program. Our goal for the BMI Vocational program is to provide or offer a level of training in a minimum of five major areas of trainings, namely, Agriculture, Electrical, Domestic Science, Building Construction and General Mechanics. We are also aware that other areas of studies are possible, such as Health education, Auto Mechanics, etc.
As we make preparation for another school year, (the 2022/ 2023) it is interesting that the just ended school year made it four “school years” that we have completed. During these four school years, the program which got started with Electrical in the first year of its inception (2017/ 2018), has added Agriculture and Domestic Science subsequently. With the two additional, Domestic Science is the most recent and was introduced during the last school year. Meanwhile, we’ve continue to develop each of the three areas considering that each is growing into a departmental level. For example, at our end of the year meeting we gave consideration of adding training in Solar Power Installation and Oxygen welding to our Electrical Department. Also, due to the fact that we started the Domestic Science courses a little out of schedule and there are senior students in the department, there are few areas of trainings that we must consider this school year, to include tailoring, Interior Decoration and another level of Soap making.
Training In Solar Panel Installation
We are grateful to God that while Mr. Abednego Koon and team of Booker Washington Institute (BWI) were with us at BMI to conduct our seniors’ electrical evaluation, we also used the opportunity to do a mini teachers’ Institute specifically on Solar Panel Instillation. The Institute’s goal was to introduce the Voc Teachers particularly those in the Electrical Department to basic knowledge and function of each component associated with Solar Panel which include the panel, Solar batteries, Charge Controller and Inverter; as well as understand appropriate dangers surrounding Solar Power and usage. (Mr. Brown and electrical team are working on the outline for teaching solar installation).
Mr. David Butler is working on an outline for teaching Oxygen Welding which we think should be considered as a Core Competence Course along with electrical welding. Mr. Butler has great skill in each of these two kinds of welding.
The 2022/ 2023 School Year
The new school year (2022/ 2023) will begin on Monday, September 19. As it stands, the following is what we have:
12th Grade: Electrical 5 : Agriculture 1 : Domestic Science 2
11th Grade: Electrical 7 : Agriculture 1 : Domestic Science 5
10th Grade: 12 Students & 6 New (unknown placement as this time)
The six new students may reduce depending on what they do in the placement test scheduled for 10 th September.
We hope to provide another update by 19-20 th September once we commence classes.
Other Updates
Soap can be used every day by human. And BMI is of no exception. Every year, our students use dozens of washing and bathing soap which cost huge money. This incoming school year, BMI wants to sell soap produced right on campus by students. Therefore, with the Palm-kernel Cracker equipment (a capstone project fixed by one of the teams from BMI first Senior Class), we have worked hard to secure palm-kernels to start with, and we are currently producing palm-kernel oil. In the next few days, our soap making Instructor – Mr. Ngayyanga Vandi and interested students will be working to produce both washing and bath soap.
May God bless the work of our hands.