Curriculum Global

One of the standard problems faced by missionary children or TCKs is the level of integration that they can have into the local culture. Our children are often attending international schools where they can very easily become isolated - except from the expatriate international scene. A typical accusation levelled against the specialist TCK school is that it segregates the children away into a rarefied “bubble” that has little or nothing to do with the host culture. Without deliberate efforts to ensure that it doesn’t happen, the problem can be the same for children learning at home – whatever the method used - correspondence, internet or another course selected by the parents. Faced with this isolation from the local culture and the resulting lack of bonding, some have suggested that attending the local school is a major part of the answer. What are the pros and cons of this idea?


The major benefit is that the children get an insider’s view of the local culture and rub shoulders with their national peers. Normally speaking, this is a good way to acquire the local language. This acquisition does not just “happen”, so the parents need to understand that it takes the children some time to reach a satisfactory level, and it could be necessary to repeat a school year. Generally speaking, the younger the child the better this works. A child of 6 or 7 stands a much better chance of learning the language and fitting in to the school scene than one of 12 or 13. The language that they have to learn is at a simpler level and they have not yet learned a large technical vocabulary in their mother tongue. Additionally, younger children tend to be more accepting and open to outsiders than teenagers, so the social integration should be better. There are other benefits.


- This is a cheaper option if the local state schools are used. However, if the standard of the state school education is low and a local private school * has to be used, this may not be the case.

- The standard of education on offer in some countries may actually be better than that of the passport country. We have some friends who worked for many years in France, before taking up a new assignment in the USA. All of their children went through some years of French education. All of them have performed well academically and were ahead of their peers when they “returned” to the USA. The standard of some of the local private schools can also be very good* – other friends who spent several years in Kenya were very happy with the education their children received in such a school. The children were bored on their “return” to the UK, feeling that they were not academically stretched. *(A danger here though is that the private school may be too full of expatriates and so not really allow integration.)

- The parents are seen to be choosing to integrate as well. It is a significant vote of confidence in the host culture and its educational system. In developed countries, especially across the anglophone world, choosing to follow a correspondence or home education system from the passport country rather than using the local school can cause offence and be a barrier to ministry.

- The parents should now have the same time available and can follow the same type of daily schedule as their national friends.

- The nuclear family can be kept together.


These advantages have prompted some team leaders to make national school attendance a recommendation worth considering for at least some of the school years. These leaders have also seen how difficult it has been for children who have had segregated schooling to bond with the host culture. So why don’t we all go down this road? Not surprisingly there are some formidable obstacles in many of the situations our families are in.