InterMission Missionary Kid Education Consultation (IMKEC)
2008 IMKEC Schedule
2008 IMKEC Minutes
IMKEC Consensus Statements—History
2008 IMKEC Presentations
1-ISP 2008 Tracking Final for IMKEC
Haile, Dorothy Child Safety Update
Hilgeman-Shingledecker Latino Missionary Kid (MK) Education Update
Limpic, Claudia Latino MK Education Issues
2008 Consensus Statements
#1—MKs From New Sending Countries
IMKEC encourages schools, where we are involved in governance, supplying teachers, or sending students, to extend their vision to serve MKs coming from new sending countries and to increase their resources by:
- Seeking to develop their mother tongue programmes (including language, culture and history) and to recruit teachers for this
- Providing scholarships for students from new sending countries
- Sponsoring satellite schools in their own and other countries for students from new sending countries
- Offering Advance Placement (AP) or non-North American university entrance qualifying programmes, e.g. Cambridge A Level, or IB, in order to broaden the university options for their students
IMKEC believes that MK education and care are crucial if missionary families are to thrive in their field service. In light of this IMKEC emphasizes that:
- discussion about MK education and care issues should start at an early stage in the selection and preparation of missionaries from new sending countries
- MK education and care staff be consulted during the recruitment, preparation and placement discussions with sending agencies and partners in new sending countries (as well as for families from our current sending countries)
#2—Mother Tongue Issues
IMKEC continues to emphasise the importance of each student maintaining and developing his/her mother tongue language skills for the following reasons:
- to foster a healthy sense of personal and cultural identity
- to facilitate second language learning
- to promote communication and connectedness with the immediate and extended family
- to develop and implement appropriate educational plans (in relation to choosing educational options, for higher education success, and to maximize future life opportunities)
In order to achieve this, we strongly recommend that:
- Mission agencies provide parents with resources and information
- Schools provide adequately for mother tongue and English as a Foreign Language (EFL) studies in their schedule/timetable
#3—Mission:Teach Update And Affirmation
IMKEC thanks all concerned in Wycliffe USA, ACSI, and Finishers for their vision, perseverance, and financial investment in the ongoing development of the MISSION:TEACH resource for teacher recruitment.
IMKEC encourages sending agencies to:
- sign up and arrange for training
- encourage related schools to sign up
- publicise this recruitment resource as widely as possible, including linking mission agency and school websites to the Mission:Teach website.
PLEASE NOTE: As of January 2012, this program is no longer affiliated with ACSI. For international recruiting opportunities, please visit our International Recruiting Fair webpage.
#4—Child Safety Policy
IMKEC thanks the leaders of the Child Safety & Protection Network for their work and validates the importance of this subject.
IMKEC encourages missions, educational support service agencies and schools (including boarding facilities) to ensure that they are involved with the Network, bringing policies and procedures into compliance with the Network standards that have been developed.
IMKEC encourages the Network to define its future structure as an inter-mission entity that establishes child safety standards and provides resources, so that agencies and schools can be recognized as being compliant.