Wangsel Institute for the Deaf in Paro started an Academic Collaboration Project with The Foundation for the Deaf under the Royal Patronage of Her Majesty the Queen of Thailand. The project will promote teaching and learning quality, and help improve the lives of the deaf.
Deaf educationist and consultants from Thailand and the Government of Thailand have been helping Wangsel Institute for the Deaf ever since its inception.
“We have been instrumental in creating sign language and sign language education in Bhutan that would enable the deaf children to be inclusive in society. The current programme is the continuation of that effort, and in different stages, we try to enhance the capability of all our modules from the curriculum, training to teaching,” Sook Sanan Jotikasthira, the Chairman of the Foundation for the Deaf under the Royal Patronage of Her Majesty the Queen, Thailand, said.
Academic Collaboration Project, as a part of its first phase, gave 11 sets of projectors with screen to the Institute on May 15. The project will support Wangsel Institute with teaching Aids, financial support and vocation training to uplift deaf education in Bhutan.
“From this collaboration with the foundation, we are hoping to get technical support and other support like the capacity building of both hearing and deaf teachers. As we are still working towards the development of deaf education which is at the infant stage, we want to further make it better. So for that, we need their support in terms of methodology in teaching deaf students, maybe infrastructures and teaching-learning resources,” Sushila Gurung, a Teacher of Wangsel Institute for the Deaf, said.
Wangsel Institute for the Deaf first started in 2003 with just two teachers and four students. Today the Institute has 105 students and last year, the first batch of class 10 students graduated.