Extended classrooms return to villages

KHAR COMMUNITY PRIMARY SCHOOL: Many students walk for hours to this school.

One of the main campaign promises of Druk Phuensum Tshokpa was to ensure that no child walks more than half an hour to school. A beginning seems to have been made towards fulfilling this pledge with the re-introduction of extended classrooms (ECR) into the heart of villages with enough enrolments from this academic session.

Following a letter from the Education Minister, the dzongkhag education sector, in consultation with the gups, principals and Gewog Administrative Officers, carried out a need survey in all the eleven gewogs of the dzongkhag and came up with the need for six ECRs in five gewogs.

All the six ECRs in Pemagatshel will have about 15 to 30 students studying from preprimary to class II. The ECR in Maan village under Zobel Gewog will be up to class III with 15 students. Gashari village under Norbugang will have 30 students studying from this year. Other villages, which will have ECRs, are Yomzore under Chongshing Gewog with 16 students, Kheri under Shumar Gewog with 15 students, Nangmalam under Zobel Gewog with 25 students and Pangthang under Nanong Gewog with 20 students.

“Initially, these ECRs will be manned by a teacher each,” said the Dzongkhag Education Officer (DEO), Sherub Dorji. “He or she will use multi-grade teachinglearning method. Ideally, the ECRs should have at least two teachers each. We will make efforts to send an additional teacher each as soon as possible.”

However, there are other villages from where students walk long distances to reach schools. Students from the villages will be admitted to the nearest boarding schools that have day meal and stipend facilities.

The ECRs will be set up in private houses and community centres like outreach clinics and non-formal education centres. According to the DEO, while providing ECRs with all the facilities at par with mainstream schools would not be possible, they will be provided basic facilities like water supply. For cultural and sports programmes,the ECRs will be using the facilities of the nearest parent schools.

Parents and officials say that the establishment of ECRs would enable students to concentrate better on their studies and perform better. Earlier, some students from far-off villages had to walk for hours to school under gruelling circumstances. This adversely affected their performance.

“It was a pity that, at the end of the day, young and vulnerable children had to make their long way back home, often through forests,” said Sonam Gyelpo, a farmer from Gonpung village.

Sherab Dorji said, “Despite minimal facilities, students will learn more and get close individual attention in ECRs than in primary schools due to smaller student numbers. This enables both parents and teachers to monitor their children closely.”

Tashi Sonam, a local leader, who worked as a teacher many years back, also feels very optimistic about the ECRs facilitating better learning atmosphere. “I wonder why the government did away with the ECRs in the first place. Instead of experimenting with new programmes, which failed in the end, continuing with the ECRs would have been a better investment.”

Asked about the implications of ECRs on the shortage of teachers, the DEO said that, he expected some additional teachers soon, which should be adequate for general subjects. “However, we do have acute shortage of language teachers,” he said.

Pemagatshel has one higher secondary school, two middle secondary schools, six lower secondary schools, five primary schools and 27 community primary schools with one of the highest primary enrolment of 97 percent.

By Gyembo Namgyal