First private school to rise in the east

19 February, 2009 - Students in the east, who could not make it to government schools after class X, can continue their higher studies closer to home with the opening of the first private higher secondary school in Mongar.

Sherub Reldri higher secondary school at Yakgang, two kilometres away from Mongar town, will open to admission next month. The proprietor Lt Colonel (retd) Rinchen Thinley said that the school would take in 500 students. The school offers all three disciplines, with two sections each of science and commerce and one of arts. Sherub Reldri provides boarding with indoor and outdoor sport facilities.

Since the school admission opened from February 13, at least five hundred application forms were sold and more than a hundred have registered with the school as of yesterday, according to the proprietor.

The first private school in the east is just only convenient for easterners, but has drawn interest from students elsewhere.

“There are admission requests from as far as Thimphu, Phuentsholing and Dagana,” Rinchen Thinley told Kuensel. “The highest requests were, however, from the east, especially from the four eastern districts of Mongar, Trashigang, Lhuentse and Trashiyangtse.”

Chimi Wangmo from Changmi, Trashigang, a class X graduate with 51 percent said that the private school opened at the right time. “I’ve no relative in Thimphu and there’s a conducive learning environment here,” said Chimi, who will study commerce.

The proposal for a private venture was submitted and sanctioned by the education ministry in 2005 and its construction started in May 2007 at a cost of Nu 24 million.

Rinchen told Kuensel that a number of students from the east ended up in Thimphu to continue their higher secondary education and, in the process, got caught up in city life. Fooding and lodging was another problem. “The private school will ease the problem for both parents and students of eastern Bhutan and should serve as a good option to parents in western Bhutan,” said Rinchen.

It is the seventh private higher secondary school in the country and first ever in the eastern region. Thimphu has three and Bumthang, Phuentsholing and Zhemgang, one each.

By Tshering Namgay , Kuensel