The right to education
The rulers said, country is opening out to be a democratic nation and rights of the citizens are secured in Bhutan as a democratic society governed by laws and rules. One more insincerity of the regimes has surfaced with the publicizing of the secondary examinations results, against its commitments. Far less than half of the total students getting through the secondary will get an opportunity to join the government colleges in grade XI this year. Does that mean, nation is protecting the right to education of its citizens?
In the chart of human rights, it has been made mandatory for the government to provide opportunity for its citizens for education. However, in Bhutan, the regime is neither permitting the private sector open colleges to run classes in higher secondary of university nor is increasing seats in the government colleges.
There have been discriminations in allocating seats for the students. Mostly southern Bhutanese are not given opportunities for higher education citing seats limit as their reason. In a recent interview with Bhutan News Service, two girl students from Lhotsam community said they have least hope of getting seats in collages.Additionally, the regime said those securing less than 58.2 or with a total mark of 291 with English plus best four subjects will not be entertained in the government colleges. This is a direct contrast to the right to education of the nationals.
According to the stats, some 3,000 students will get qualified in the grade XI out of 7,700 students who crossed the grade X examinations.
The cut-off point has been dropped by 2 marks or 0.4 percent from the previous year.This has further irked the parents from villages who have somehow managed to enroll their children in schools. All those securing higher marks, perfectly comes from richer families, pursuing good education in well-facilitated schools in urban centers.
The villagers in remote areas could hardly afford to school education. Admission to private colleges – countable in hands – in the country is beyond their assumption. Results will be obviously that students from richer families and those who have links with government machinery will get seats for their children in government colleges. Poor, either they must sweat further for their children’s education or let it remain a dream.
The government has never announced any sort of financial support for unprivileged and poor families. In long run, this has widened the gap between the riches and the poors, inviting social tension. To continue with the tradition is to indoctrinate the unprivileged section of the Bhutanese society against the government policies.