However, some young people do consider Bible school because they don’t know what else to do with themselves or because of a percieved need to “shape up” their lives, in much the same way a Thai Buddhist young man might enter the monkhood in order to make a break with his former life and start over again. I have counselled two such young men to hold off going to Bible school, continue secular studies/get a job, and to seek to grow in their faith through Scripture study, and learning to serve in church.

You mention the fact that Asian Bible schools are often copies of the West. Do you think one of the factors in this could be an undue fascination and exaltation of all these Western? In other words, the attitude that “If it is being done like this in the West, it must be good, and we should copy it”. What is done in the West may be good in some respects, but unless there is some critical thinking about which parts to copy, which to modify, and which to throw out entirely, then the Bible schools will stay in the state that they are. Bible schools need to focus more on the principles of Biblical education rather than the form and outward appearance of it.