World Church: Educating Thousands in the United States, World, Home Study International Marks 95 Years

Silver Spring, Maryland, United States …. [Mark A. Kellner/ANN Staff]

Celebrating 95 years of pioneering distance education, Home Study International, Inc., a unit of the Seventh-day Adventist Church world headquarters, is reaching new kinds of students, and achieving educational “miracles” along the way.

HSI, as it is known, is now processing between 20 and 25 high school graduates every day, says Dr. Joseph Gurubatham, president, thanks to its partnership with approximately 60 U.S. Job Corps centers, more than half of the 118 in operation. The centers, operated by the United States Department of Labor, give job training and opportunities to disadvantaged and “at risk” young people between the ages of 16 and 24. Since it was started in 1964, the Job Corps has provided more than 2 million disadvantaged young people with the integrated academic, vocational and social skills training needed to gain independence and obtain quality, long-term jobs or further their education.

The success stories emerging from the program are heartening, says Dr. Alayne Thorpe, executive vice president for education.

Yuot (who, like many HSI students, asked that his full name not be

used) is one of the “lost boys” from Sudan, a nation that for years has been engaged in fierce Muslim-Christian conflict. He escaped from the village of Anyidi when it was attacked and lived for several years in an Ethiopian refugee camp, but had to leave when war broke out there. He and many other young children lived in the woods and off whatever they could find to eat until they were rescued by the Red Cross and sent to another refugee camp in Kenya. Under the sponsorship of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, Yuot was sent to a Job Corps center in Kentucky where he received practical training and earned a high school diploma through HSI.

“Mary” is a young woman who began experimenting with drugs when she was 10 years old and became pregnant at 14. She had to drop out of school to take care of her baby, but could not earn a living wage because she lacked job skills. Mary enrolled in a Job Corps center and worked on both a high school diploma through HSI and office-work skills. She was recently hired by the U.S. Postal Service, and is now able to support herself and her child.

The HSI curriculum used in the Job Corps centers is identical to that provided to Adventist Church missionaries and families who are unable to find a local Adventist academy, Gurubatham says, except that the religion component is not provided.

“We have to adopt our offerings to the clientele,” Gurubatham says, however the health education unit of the high school program uses “principles that are Adventist [health] principles.”

The high school education offering is poised for expansion. A Job Corps team will visit HSI this week to examine the possibility of using the curriculum in the remaining 58 centers.

Originally founded to provide curricula to Adventist families abroad, the HSI mission has expanded to include offering college degrees via distance education. Gurubatham reported that HSI’s tertiary institution, Griggs University, has had its accreditation renewed for five years, and has been authorized to offer a Master of Christian Ministries degree. Dr. Rex Edwards, associate vice president and director of religious studies for the school, will head the new program, which is aimed at church workers outside the North American sphere.

Copyright © 2004 by Adventist News Network.