The ministry of education is expected to complete the admission of all class XI students in private schools on government scholarships by tomorrow and claims to upload the placement orders on the ministry’s website.

The ministry is providing full scholarship to class X students in 21 private schools across the country. The ministry has placed 7,808 of the total 12,033 students who passed the Bhutan Certificate of Secondary Education (BCSE) class X examination 2018 in public higher secondary schools. The government is providing full scholarship to the remaining 4,225 students in private schools.

Of the 4,225 students, 2,060 students are absorbed in boarding schools while 1,690 would be enrolled as day scholars. Of the 21, 16 private schools would be enrolling students on the government’s scholarships of Nu 30,000 for day scholars and Nu 50,000 for boarders.

For the remaining five private schools that did not agree with the ministry’s rate, the government would provide the scholarship amount of Nu 30,000 while the students would have to bear the remaining amount.

Since the registration of students in the respective schools ministry began from February 8, boarders should report to their schools on February 24 and day scholars on February 25 according to the ministry’s notification.

However, after students were placed in different private schools and the information uploaded on the ministry’s website, many students and parents were disgruntled, confused and complained about the placement.

At least more than five parents or students are seen at the ministry everyday to get their placements changed while officials attend to phone calls from parents and students.

Parents who were at the ministry yesterday told Kuensel that while they live in other dzongkhags, their children are placed in private schools in Thimphu. In some cases, the students are placed in another school in the region while others wanted to enroll their children as boarders.

Relatives represented some of the students because both the students and parents live in remote villages. Some parents chose to top up the fees and send their children to other five private schools.

Amid the confusions, school planning and coordination division’s chief, Kinley Gyeltshen, said the ministry, for day scholars, placed the students ensuring regional balance.

For boarders, Kinley Gyeltshen said that the ministry placed the most needy students identified by the school principals based on their socio-economic background, orphans, single parent, and disabled parents.

“Those students who have no access to private schools in the region they live and cannot study as day scholar are also enrolled as boarders,” he said. “Since we didn’t want to move students from one region to another, we made sure to place students in their own region where there are private schools.”

However, he said that some of the school principals missed out the needy students and while some students’ parents were transferred to another region after the placements were completed.

“For instance, we placed students who studied in Thimphu in private schools in Thimphu thinking they would study here but we found that their parents were transferred,” he said. “The confusion was also created after some schools started enrolling students when it was only the ministry that can place the students.”

Working day and night to sort out the admission problems, Kinley Gyeltshen said the officials are attending to every complains and request to adjust and place students in schools of their choice.

“But we’re almost done resolving the issues and we’ll make sure that the students are all placed by February 20,” he said. “However, we may have to expect few cases to come up and have kept some seats for adjustment.”

Meanwhile, the ministry is also mobilising funds and plans to pay the first installment of fees by next month. The ministry would pay the fees quarterly.

Yangchen C Rinzin