The Yonphula Specialised Rehabilitation School in Trashigang’s Kanglung Gewog, has been officially soft-launched yesterday under its new name, Yarabling Higher Secondary School. It is the first school of its kind in the country, dedicated to helping students recovering from substance use disorder continue their education while receiving guided rehabilitation support. Minister for Education and Skills Development, Yeezang De Thapa launched the school. Officials from the education ministry, the district administration, and local government also attended the event.
The renovation work of the academic block, dining and some hostels has been completed. However, a few hostels and other infrastructure are still under development.
By the mid of next month, over 60 students from classes 7 to 10 will join the school.
Respective school counsellors identified the students for the school and shared the list with the Department of Education Programmes.
Sangye Choden, the director of the Department of Education Programmes said, “This assessment panel, it is multi disciplinary; we have members from The PEMA Secretariat, BFDA, the Ministry of Health, and our certified counsellors. They looked at the students’ list and then validated whether they should be going here or not. Currently, we have 63 students, in the “clear category”, where both parents want to send and students also volunteered to come here.”
The teaching staff has already reported to the school.
Yeshey Dorji, the principal of Yarabling Higher Secondary School said, “In a day, we will take three classes, then we will take other sessions such as sports, and other skills development and counselling service. Mainly, we will focus on counselling. Of course other schools do have counselling services, but here we will focus more on individual level counselling services. So here we have 4 counsellors.”
Once completed, the school will have an intake capacity of 420 students.
When the establishment of the school was initially announced, people said that although the initiative is well-intended, students who test positive for drugs will be mentally disturbed or face discrimination.
However, the government has since responded that it assures the public that this initiative is being carried out with the utmost care, sensitivity and in the best interests of the children.
Sonam Darjay, Trashigang
Edited by Kipchu
