Mayor Jack helps Xavier test takers

Students from schools around Majuro took the Xavier High School entrance test last Saturday at Assumption Schools. Xavier alumni Haneda Kabua and Milañ Loeak (seated at left) helped to organize the test for public and private school students. Photo: Hilary Hosia
Students from schools around Majuro took the Xavier High School entrance test last Saturday at Assumption Schools. Xavier alumni Haneda Kabua and Milañ Loeak (seated at left) helped to organize the test for public and private school students. Photo: Hilary Hosia

Thanks to Majuro Atoll Local Government Mayor Ladie Jack, students taking the Xavier High School entrance exam last Saturday at Assumption School went home on a full stomach.

Close to 50 students from various schools in Majuro, including a Marshall Islands High School student hoping to transfer, showed up for the annual test for students interested in attending the Jesuit school in Chuuk in the Federated States of Micronesia.

The downside of this story was the “no show” of students from Laura, Ajeltake and Woja elementary schools despite rigorous planning and ongoing negotiations with public school officials by the Xavier alumni group.

Why the no-show? According to the assigned bus driver, no students were at designated pick up sites. But according to one teacher, they simply forgot to make permission slips for the students to take home and some students were tired because of the weeklong education activities.

A teacher said her students were waiting on a bus that never showed.

A retest is scheduled for this Saturday to cater for kids who did not make the test.

Read more about this in the February 24, 2017 edition of the Marshall Islands Journal.