A student here finishing grade twelve has the same ability as one finishing in the city and a fraction of the information, and that is the whole reason this desk exists.
What it does. Two afternoons a week, any student from grade ten upwards may come. The desk holds what courses exist and what each one asks for, what the training institutions offer, when applications open and close, what a scholarship application actually requires, and which subjects at grade twelve close which doors, which is the question most often asked two years too late.
It also holds the practical things: how to fill in an application, what a personal statement is, what documents have to be certified, and what it costs to live in Male for a year, which is the figure families most often have wrong.
What the desk does not do. Promise anybody a place, speak for any institution, or advise on anything it has not checked in writing that year. The teacher who runs it rechecks the requirements every year because they move, and a desk working from a two year old memory does real harm.
Parents may use it too and about thirty families a year do, mostly for the questions about cost and accommodation rather than about courses.
Grade ten families are welcome and encouraged, because the subject choices that matter most are made before anybody thinks of this desk.