People of Banjar in Monggar are engaged in a bitter argument with schoolteachers and education officers on the issue of Banjar School in Monggar being shut down just when the 2015 academic session was about to start.
While the people have started appealing to higher authority, district education officer, Passang Dorji said, the school had to be shut down, as it did not meet certain education rules and regulations.
According to initial plans, the school was to function as an extended classroom.
Passang Dorji said the school did not meet the requirement when it came to having at least ten minimum students to qualify as an extended classroom. The intention, he said was not to close the school, but it was found too taxing for one teacher to teach 16 subjects only to a few students.
“We expected more students to be enrolled this year, but there was zero admission,” he said.
Parents of students have accused the school principal on grounds that wrong information was submitted about the school and that the people were not informed anything about such rules and regulations earlier.
Principal Tsheltrim Dorji refuted this claim saying the parents were briefed about downsizing plans and that he even shared concerns about the possibility of the school being shut down during the Parents-Teachers meeting.
Meanwhile, while it was clearly conveyed that the school would shut down, the dzongkhag education sector assured the people that the school would reopen immediately once the minimum requirement was met.
Passang Dorji said, while he respected people’s concerns and views, rules and regulation too had to be followed.
The nine students who studied in the school have been transferred to the nearest boarding school in Tsamang Gewog. However, people are still bitter since the school was far away and most of the students were young and little.
Also, people expressed their dissatisfaction to the gewog administration for being ignorant about the issue.
