{"id":770,"date":"2009-08-26T11:15:55","date_gmt":"2009-08-26T05:15:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/?p=770"},"modified":"2009-08-26T11:15:55","modified_gmt":"2009-08-26T05:15:55","slug":"long-haul-to-samcholing-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/26\/long-haul-to-samcholing-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Long haul to Samcholing school"},"content":{"rendered":"

Without boarding or teacher\u2019s quarter facilities, it\u2019s a 10 km hike back and forth<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Going to school in remote Bhutan involves hours of walking. In Samcholing, Trongsa, it is not just some students either.<\/p>\n

The 121 students and 10 teachers of the recently upgraded lower secondary school walk uphill for hours to their school without boarding or teacher\u2019s quarter facilities. Located above the main Samcholing village, there is no settlement around for teachers to rent houses and all the 16 teaching and non-teaching staff walk five and half km every day to reach the school. Some students walk about 10 km.<\/p>\n

The only female teacher in the school, Shoba G, stays in Kuengarabten. \u201cI wake up at 5 am every morning and walk for an hour and a half to reach school,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The 2.7 km farm road that connects the school from the Trongsa-Zhemgang highway is not pliable.<\/p>\n

Farmers of Samcholing, who live on a sharecropping system and own little land of their own, are not happy too. \u201cWe\u2019re the least developed people and our children have no bordering facilities,\u201d said a 52-year-old father. \u201cIf the school wasn\u2019t in our village, our children would avail hostel facilities in Taktse middle secondary school,\u201d said another villager.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Walking for hours early in the morning tires students and teachers, which hamper daily lessons, according to a teacher, who chose anonymity. \u201cStudents don\u2019t get the attention they deserve and they can\u2019t not give attention in classes too,\u201d he said. \u201cSome students doze off in the first period itself.<\/p>\n

The situation becomes worse during monsoons. With incessant rainfall, the rivers get swollen and the footpath becomes too slippery. \u201cI fell down several times and had to take leave,\u201d Shoba G said.<\/p>\n

The principal of the school, Tshering Wamling, said that classes had to be called off for about three days, as most students could not make it to school.<\/p>\n

Tshering Wamling told Kuensel that the teachers would have to bear the problem for this academic year but things are expected to improve in future, if the road condition is improved and the proposal for a three unit teacher\u2019s quarter materialises. \u201cTaking into consideration the economic situation of the place, I\u2019ve put up a proposals for hostel facilities in the gewog yargye tshogdue,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The gewog is aware of the problems faced by teachers and students, according to Drakteng gup Tenzin. \u201cSamcholing school was upgraded because Kuengarabten primary school could not be upgraded due to lack of space,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Gup Tenzin said that the construction of teachers\u2019 quarter is in the pipeline and the proposal for hostel facility was also discussed in the dzongkhag yargye tshogdue. \u201cIt depends on the education office in the dzongkhag to provide the facility,\u201d he said, adding that the education office rejects the proposals on grounds that the school is located near the road head and village. \u201cSamcholing was planned as a day school and day schools don\u2019t get any hostel facilities,\u201d said the district education officer in Trongsa, Karma Sonam.<\/p>\n

However, gup Tenzin said that teachers could stay in Samcholing village. \u201cBut most prefer to stay in Kuengarabten because of lack of electricity in Samcholing,\u201d he said. \u201cAn electricity connection could solve the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

By Tashi Dema, Trongsa<\/em>
\nSource: Kuenselonline<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Without boarding or teacher\u2019s quarter facilities, it\u2019s a 10 km hike back and forth Going to school in remote Bhutan involves hours of walking. In Samcholing, Trongsa, it is not just some students either. The 121 students and 10 teachers of the recently upgraded lower secondary school walk uphill for hours to their school without … Continue reading Long haul to Samcholing school<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,8,13,14],"tags":[205,460,912,1232,1351],"class_list":["post-770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-sustainable-development","category-gross-national-happiness","category-urban-planning-and-rural-development","category-sustainable-development","tag-bhutan","tag-education","tag-millennium-development-goals","tag-rural-development","tag-sustainable-development"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}