The Bhutanese Leading the way.
The 2023 Health Survey found 48,325 cases of people with disabilities in age group 5 years and above in the country. The Population and Housing Census of Bhutan 2017 found that 80 percent of children with disabilities (6 years to 18 years) are not in school.
While school admission time is usually a stressful time for parents and young children entering school, however, the stress level is higher for parents of children with disabilities across the country, as there is a lack of adequate inclusive schools that their children can be enrolled in.
The problem is particularly acute in Thimphu Thromde which has a floating population of over 100,000 and where parents of children with disabilities from other dzongkhags since 2003, aim to enroll their children in the oldest inclusive school, Changangkha Middle Secondary School (CMSS).
When CMSS was bursting at the seams with 143 children with disabilities, the school had no choice but to turn away many applicants who had nowhere else to go.
It was then that the Principal, CMSS, Nyendo Tshering, alerted the Thromde Education Office and the Ministry of Education and Skills Development (MoESD) of the constraints faced by the school in not being able to enroll more children with disabilities.
As a result, the Thimphu Thromde Education Office and MoESD identified 5 additional inclusive schools in 2024 and they have started admitting in children with disabilities mainly from Pre-Primary level onwards. The SEN Division under MoESD played an important part here too, and also in terms of allocating continuous resources and training.
The new inclusive schools identified in Thimphu Thromde are Sherabgatshel Primary School, Dechencholing Higher Secondary School, Taba Lower Secondary School, Changzamtog Middle Secondary School and Loselling Middle Secondary School.
This is in addition to CMSS which been inclusive since 2003 and the Yangchengatshel Higher Secondary School in Chamgang under Thimphu has been inclusive since 2017.
Motithang Higher Secondary School, which has classes 9 to 12, had been identified as an inclusive school from 2023 onwards, but it is yet to take in children with disability except for a child in crutches and another with mild ADHD who were already in school.
The paper visited all the schools above, and found that the five new inclusive schools of Sherabgatshel Primary School, Dechencholing Higher Secondary School, Taba Lower Secondary School, Changzamtog Middle Secondary School and Loselling Middle Secondary School, despite just being declared as inclusive in 2024 and not having any prior experience, are already admitting children with disabilities in numbers, and putting their best foot forward. Despite not having full-time Special Education Needs (SEN) teachers each of these schools had a group of teachers and some even had the Vice Principal and Principal undergoing 4 to 5 days of SEN training in CMSS, with a smaller group sent for a few days immersion training to Delhi.
The teachers in these schools, in addition to teaching general students and subjects, are also teaching the SEN students. This creates a challenge of additional workload, which it is hoped can be addressed in the Teacher Requirement Exercise (TRE) for these schools where they can put forward their requests for additional teachers.
Apart from manpower shortage, in the middle of a general teacher shortage, lack of specialized SEN teachers, the other common challenges are; lack of teaching materials, need for adequate space in a few cases, lack of expert advice, need for physical infrastructure, need for transition of students from higher classes, issues of acceptance by parents, getting more mainstream teachers involved apart from the few teachers trained for 4 to 5 days, and the general need to allocate more resources, and need for robust planning and sustainable SEN systems required in the coming years.
Another issue is that these schools have the pressure of board exams in classes 6, 8, 10 and 12 and also general academic pressure with the IWP breathing down their necks, and not factoring in the SEN education they have to handle.
In light of such crucial responsibilities shouldered by the teachers, it would seem reasonable that both MoESD and RCSC provide additional support to these schools by implementing policies that alleviate some of the burden on teachers. This could include reducing the frequency of exams, offering specialized training for handling SEN students, and allocating more resources for mental health and well-being. By doing so, MoESD and RCSC would not only improve the quality of education, but also ensure that teachers can focus more effectively on both general academic performance and inclusive education. Such policies would create a more balanced environment that supports both students and educators, ultimately leading to better outcomes for all.
Most of the teachers in the inclusive schools started with not having the experience to teach students with disabilities, but they persevered, and after around 9 months, they have gained the experience through their own self-taught experience. What stands out is that it is the passion and dedication of schools and teachers towards these students that is driving change.
The most important change in the inclusive schools is an attitude and mindset change that is already happening. Teachers with some adaptations are teaching SEN students, general students are getting exposed to SEN students, which is an education in itself, and is helping develop a more inclusive and empathetic mindset in them from a young age, which will serve them in the longer run. The inclusive schools are also attempting to educate their general students about SEN students.
In almost all the schools that the paper visited, teachers talked about the positive changes and improvements in SEN students over time, and teachers also reporting a deeper level of satisfaction in teaching these students and making a difference in their lives.
These inclusive schools have made an effort by coming up with special rooms where SEN students can have pull out classes. In most cases, the SEN students have been kept with general students.
Most SEN students cannot cope up with the general curriculum, and so MoESD has given flexibility to schools with an adapted functional curriculum, and schools can even come up with individualized curriculum.
One common feature across the inclusive schools is they are finding a large number of existing students in senior classes with Learning Disabilities or even Intellectual Disabilities with the help of diagnostic tools. Otherwise such students were earlier thought to be weak students and class repeaters.
The Thromde Education Office said that the 7 inclusive schools in Thimphu Thromde have a total of 285 students with disabilities.
The ground visit by this paper shows that this number can rise exponentially given that many of these schools have either not done or completed their assessments, and have lists of suspected cases of Learning Disability, Intellectual Disability and Specific Learning Disability.
As an example, Dechencholing Higher Secondary School is from classes 4 to 12 and it was expecting students with disability only in another two or three years time once its feeder or sister-school of Sherabgatshel Primary School from PP to 3 starts sending their students there.
However, when Dechencholing HSS used a diagnostic tool on its existing supposedly general students from classes 4 to 12, it found 58 students with disabilities and also confirmed by the JDWNRH. 6 had intellectual disability, 9 had learning disability and 43 had specific learning disability.
It is expected that if all other inclusive or even general schools in Bhutan run such diagnostics then similar or even higher numbers will come up.
The Thromde Education Officer, Kuenzang Lhendup, said that in 2022 Thromde did a survey in Thimphu and found the necessity for SEN education. He said that the CMSS Principal, Nyendo Tshering, also recommended to have more inclusive schools as it could not take all the admission applications for in CMSS.
The Thromde Education Office took up the matter with MoESD which approved the 5 inclusive schools and started giving training and equipment.
TEO Kuenzang said that initially Thromde did not have a budget head for inclusive schools, but it could keep some budget to help the schools, and in the last financial year, it kept budget heads under both current and capital to help the inclusive schools.
Bhutan has 39 inclusive schools in 20 dzongkhags with one in each dzongkhags, and the addition of five schools in Thimphu in 2024 pushed that number to 44.
TEO Kuenzang said there was initially some apprehension from the schools, but it was explained to them that they would get some training and resources, and it is all about the heart.
The five schools and the SEN teachers did put their heart into it, to the extent that some teachers even used their own money to get learning materials or toys to teach in class.
This paper will feature the inclusive schools in Thimphu Thromde and Thimphu Dzongkhag in the coming series of articles.
