Helvetas handover

February 11 – The ambassador of Switzerland to Bhutan, Philippe Welti, will formally hand over buildings constructed under third phase of the Swiss agency for development and corporation (SDC) to the vice chancellor, royal university of Bhutan, Dasho (Dr) Pema Thinley, today at the Paro college of education.

SDC has been a partner of the education ministry for several decades in building largescale infrastructure support, human resource development, curriculum review and development, and building institutional partnerships.

The third and the last phase of the project was completed on December 31 2009. SDC had contributed CHF 7.5 mn (Nu 326 mn approx.), while the Bhutanese government contributed Nu 24.5 mn.

From the mid 1980s until today, SDC has financed three phases of infrastructure building support to the colleges of education in Paro and in Samtse. For this project, SDC contributed more than CHF 28 mn (about Nu 1,200 mn) to the Bhutanese education system. This does not include the support for the college of natural resources. Infrastructure built include an academy complex with five classroom blocks and an administration block, a faculty building, a lecture theatre (260 seats) and gymnasium, 5 students’ hostels and staff quarters, dining hall/kitchen facilities and four visitors’ apartments.

Compound development work and major renovations of Paro education college’s research centre and the science education centre was also carried out under the project. The new infrastructure helped increase the intake capacity of the Paro college from less than 220 students before 1999 to 980 students in 2010. In Samtse, the recently constructed learner resource centre is expected to enhance the IT training facilities and capacity of both teacher educators and trainees.

source: kuensel