Wangsel Institute for the Deaf

The Wangsel Institute for the Deaf is a residential school for deaf students located in Drugyel, on the grounds of the former Drugyel Lower Secondary School in Paro. It was established as a Deaf Education Unit on 1 June 2003 and was reorganised as a stand-alone Special Institute under the Ministry of Education on 1 January 2020. It is the only school in Bhutan that uses Bhutanese Sign Language (BhSL) as its primary medium of instruction and the principal site for the development and standardisation of that language.

The institute serves around 60-80 students at any time and offers schooling from pre-primary through middle secondary level, alongside vocational training. It is the primary node of the small Bhutanese deaf community.

Establishment

The Deaf Education Unit was established at Drugyel Lower Secondary School on 1 June 2003 by the Ministry of Education with technical support from UNICEF Bhutan. The founding cohort consisted of seven staff: two hearing teachers and five deaf adults whose role was to develop sign-language vocabulary alongside the introduction of formal schooling for the first generation of Bhutanese deaf children to receive primary education in their own country. Until that point, the small number of Bhutanese deaf students who received any schooling at all had been sent to schools in India.^[1]

The unit was upgraded over time, gaining boarding facilities, a dedicated curriculum and qualified teachers, and was formally separated from Drugyel Central School to become the Wangsel Institute for the Deaf on 1 January 2020. Its name Wangsel, the Dzongkha word for empowerment, was conferred by His Majesty Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck.^[2]

Bhutanese Sign Language

Bhutanese Sign Language (BhSL) is the indigenous sign language of Bhutan and is used predominantly at the Wangsel Institute. It draws on Indian Sign Language for some of its core lexicon but has developed a substantial body of distinctive Bhutanese signs - particularly for terms relating to dzongs, festivals, agricultural practices and Buddhist concepts - through the work of deaf adults and teachers at the institute. A BhSL dictionary has been developed iteratively since 2003 and is published by the institute on its website.^[3]

UNICEF Bhutan has documented the BhSL development project as one of the more striking examples of community-led language standardisation in South Asia, in which deaf adolescents themselves contributed substantially to lexicon decisions.^[4]

Curriculum and student life

The institute offers schooling from pre-primary through Class VIII (middle secondary). Students who continue beyond Class VIII are transferred to inclusive secondary schools elsewhere in the country. The curriculum follows the national framework but is delivered in BhSL. Subjects include Dzongkha, English, mathematics, science, social studies and ICT, with vocational tracks in tailoring, weaving and ICT for older students.

Around 60-80 students are enrolled in any given year, drawn from across all twenty dzongkhags. Boarding is universal because of the geographic spread of the deaf-student population. Staff are trained in BhSL, with continuing-professional-development support from international deaf-education NGOs and from regional partners in India and Sri Lanka.^[5]

Sport and external partnerships

The institute participates in regional deaf-sport activities and is the de-facto site for any Bhutanese deaf-sport delegation, in the absence of a separate national federation accredited to the International Committee of Sports for the Deaf (ICSD). It works closely with the Disabled Persons' Association of Bhutan, the Royal Education Council and international partners including the Disability Information Office and Deaf Child Worldwide.

Contact information

• Location: Drugyel, Paro Dzongkhag, Bhutan
• Website: wangsel.education.gov.bt
• Phone: [Information needed — contribute if you know]
• Founded: 1 June 2003 (as Deaf Education Unit); 1 January 2020 (as stand-alone institute)

References

1. About — Wangsel Institute for the Deaf
2. Wangsel Institute for the Deaf — Paro Dzongkhag Administration
3. Bhutanese Sign Language — Wangsel Institute
4. Deaf students construct first sign language for Bhutan — UNICEF Bhutan
5. Upgrading and strengthening Deaf Education — Kuensel
6. Bhutanese Sign Language — Wikipedia