Himachal minister writes to New Delhi not to transfer school to Sambhota Tibetan School Society

DHARAMSALA, 16 Sept: Himachal’s urban development minister has requested New Delhi “not to hand over a school in Shimla to Sambhota Tibetan School Society(STSS)”.

“Amid local opposition to the decision of the Union ministry of human resource development to

hand over a school in Shimla to STSS, Urban Development Minister Suresh Bhardwa has written a letter t to the  BJP national president J P Nadda, India’s Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, and Union sports minister Anurag Thakur requesting them not to transfer or hand over the CTS to the Tibetan NGO,” reports the Times of India. 

The Minister has further recommended converting these schools into Kendriya Vidyalaya “as the number of Tibetan students studying in these schools is negligible as compared to the Indians students,” the report added.

Kendriya Vidyalaya is a system of central government schools in India that are instituted under the aegis of the Ministry of Education, Government of India.

The development came on the heels of the President of the Central Tibetan Administration(CTA) Penpa Tsering’s visit to assess five of the six CTSA schools that are yet to be transferred to the STSS, under CTA’s education department.

Sikyong Penpa Tsering has attributed the issue of declining strength of Tibetan students in these schools to the “low birth rate, migration of Tibetans abroad, and the dramatic decline in the influx of Tibetans from Tibet since 2008 as key factors responsible for the dwindling number of Tibetan students at Tibetan schools,” Tibet.net, the official webpage of the CTA reported on 9th Sep. 

The CTA President has made the remarks during his visit to CST Herbertpur where he has also  “announced his upcoming meeting in Delhi with concerned officials of CTSA and Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Education to discuss the procedures for the transfer of six schools.”

He has further “assured his commitment to do what’s best for these schools and the welfare of the students.”

The transfer of the CTSA schools to STSS was approved by India’s  Union ministry of human resource and development in 2013.

So far, a total of 55 Tibetan schools comprising 33 pre-primary schools, 9 primary schools, 5 middle schools, and 8 senior and senior secondary schools have successfully been transferred from the CTSA to STSS administered by the Education department.

The six schools that are left now are CST Mussoorie, CST Shimla, CST Dalhousie, CST Kalimpong, CST Darjeeling, and CST Herbertpur.

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