On Tuesday we had the last "normal" day of teaching because today, Wednesday, was the final exam and the evaluations. We worked hard to get everything finished and I managed to get through Tuesday with only a few pain killers. Today I feel much better :-) We finished around lunchtime today and one of the participants took his car and picked up Steffen so he could have lunch with us. After lunch the trainers gave me a very nice card with greetings from all of them on it and a present - one of the beautiful wooden boxes that they carve by hand here! I was very touched.

We talked about their vocational education system today at lunch and they told me that it isn't easy for students to drop out of a vocational education or to change to another. When students are enrolled at a technical school they sign a paper with the ministry to get a scholarship to attend the school. If they drop out they have to pay the money back! So very few drop out! It also means that it is very difficult to change from one education to another! In my mind I was comparing the situation for young people here to Danish standards. They don't have very many choices here. And this goes for the whole system - sometimes employees are transferred to other jobs in other cities here - and they are not asked beforehand. One of the participants from the ministry, Karma Dorji jr., told me that his wife is educated as a teacher for kids in secondary schools but the authorities have put her to work at a primary school, which she doesn't feel good about at all. Compared to the possibilities and rights we have in Denmark we have a lot of freedom and possibilities to choose. But we tend to forget that we are indeed very lucky compared to a lot of people in the world. I wonder if we appreciate it enough and don't take it for granted?

It felt good to finish the teaching and I have started correcting the written test now. I hope they all did well and passed. And tomorrow it is back to the ministry to finish the paper on the counselor education and start looking at what have happened with the center in Gelephu, since I was here in December. Interesting!