The number of students enrolling in Kidheykhar Central School (CS) in Mongar increased this year but the school lacks adequate infrastructure and facilities to accommodate the students.
The school has more than 700 students.
The construction of the 200-bed boys and girls hostel and 12-unit classroom, which was scheduled to complete by January this year, was delayed. The duration was extended by three months.
Today, classes for some students are taken in temporary classrooms and stays in congested hostels.
The school was upgraded to a central school in 2017 from a middle secondary school with the infrastructure and facilities of a middle secondary school, according to school authorities. The school with a capacity to accommodate about 120 boarding students has to take in more than 300 boarding students this year. The school has also requested for about four additional teachers.
Officials also said that the school had been facing increasing enrollment pressure annually.
Principal Tshewang Lhendup said the school faced accommodation pressures after Gyalpoizhing CS lifted its boarding facilities this year.
“We had to take in boarding students of Gyalpoizhing CS and also the students from its feeder schools,” he said.
He said the school was upgraded to a central school with the Gyalpoizhing CS scheduled to hand over its campus II to Gyalpoizhing College of Information Technology this year.
Most students from Gyalpoizhing CS were placed in Kidheykhar CS and the school is faced with the challenges of providing students with proper boarding facilities.
Tshewang Lhendup said almost all boarding schools in the dzongkhag faced a similar situation and they took more students because their hostels and classroom were under construction.
School authorities are sceptical the construction would complete in the extended time. Officials from the dzongkhag engineering sector were not available for comments.
Without a dining hall, the newly built kitchen would also be underutilised this year, according to the school authorities.
For the last six years, the school has been using a temporary kitchen built from CGI sheet and a temporary dining hall built near the kitchen with support from the community.
School authorities say a dining hall would be constructed in the 12th Plan.
Nima | Mongar