The Bhutanese Leading the way.
The Motithang Higher Secondary School (HSS) from classes 9 to 12 was declared an inclusive school from 2023 onwards by the Ministry of Education and Skills Development (MoESD) and Thimphu Thromde. The main intention was it being a continuing school for Changangkha Middle Secondary School, including for students with disability.
The school got most of the physical infrastructure, like ramps, inclusive bathroom, training and even sensory rooms, and has plans to build more infrastructure including a whole new building in the name of students with disabilities.
However, there is one problem. The school, even two years later, has only two students on crutches and one student with a mild ADHD issue whose condition was discovered after admission only.
It has not admitted even a single student with disability from Changangkha or otherwise.
The school, in theory, is an inclusive one, but in practice, it has not gone out of its way to admit students with disabilities or made the necessary adjustments to admit, adapt and educate them.
One of the biggest issues facing Changangkha MSS school, the first and main inclusive school in Bhutan, is the transition for its students with disability after class 10. Some go to Draktsho and others head home with no future.
A Changangkha MSS official said they have 42 children who are skilled in vocational education like arts, tailoring, cooking and laundry, and they are ready to send them to a school like Motithang HSS provided the school is ready to receive them.
However, Mothithang HSS is clearly not ready to do so. The school, expect for its token students on crutches, is clearly a very academic driven school competing with its non-inclusive peers like YHS and others to be in the top five in the country.
The situation is such that Changangkha MSS has applied for and is getting an upgrade to HSS school with a class 11 and 12 block in the 13th Five-Year-Plan.
The Motithang HSS Principal, Jigme Choden, when asked about why the school does not have students from Changangkha MSS, said that nobody came for admission from there.
A Changangkha school official said that the whole point of Motithang being an inclusive school is that it should not only take in students purely based on academics, which students with disability will not be able to fulfill.
When asked why Motithang HSS did not have students with disability admitted in larger numbers, as it had a year’s start ahead of five other inclusive schools identified in 2024, the Principal said it must not have been known widely, and so nobody applied, so far.
The Principal said the school has future plans to construct an entirely new three-storied building for students with disability with 18 classrooms, of which half would be for general students. She said the rest will be used for vocation studies like ICT, AI, etc.
Given that the school already has inclusive facilities and no students with disability, it is not really clear how building more classrooms will help if it remains empty without students.
In fact, if Motithang HSS continues building facilities and does not take in special needs students, it may end up taking away resources from truly inclusive schools under Thimphu Thromde from 2024 onwards, like Sherabgatshel Primary School, Dechencholing Higher Secondary School, Taba Lower Secondary School, Changzamtog Middle Secondary School and Loselling Middle Secondary School that have all admitted students with disabilities and are working to help them.
This is not to forget Changangkha MSS and Yangchengatshel HSS in Thimphu which have been there for a longer time.
A matter of concern is that the school has around 30 suspected cases of students with Learning Disabilities based on assessments by the school due to their repeated failures.
However, unlike Sherabgatshel PS and Dechencholing HSS, Motithang HSS is yet to send these students for proper medical assessment to the JDWNRH, and accordingly modify the curriculum, teaching methods and help them based on their needs.
The school instead pleaded with some of the parents to take them out, and put them in vocational schools or elsewhere with the fear that many would not pass the mainstream board exams.
The Motithang HSS Principal said they were not yet sent for medical assessment as parents are not aware, and it is difficult to approach them.
The Principal said the suspected LD cases are being given extra classes, and they can have the teachers of their choice, albeit it is still the mainstream curriculum they are being taught. She said that the school is being sensitized on disability and they are learning new terms.
They have two Special Education Needs (SEN) trained teachers who got a four-day training from Changangkha MSS, and plan to get five more teachers, but the only problem is that it is not clear what these teachers will do with no SEN identified students, no change in curriculum, etc.
The Motithang HSS is an illustration of a school that is inclusive in its physical structure, but it has not become inclusive at heart or in practice. It is questionable whether the school can still be called inclusive or should be given further resources that other genuinely inclusive schools need.
At the same time, the case of Motithang HSS also shows how few students with disability can move up the classes or even transit to other schools showing that a lot more needs to be done for genuinely inclusive education.
