Last Saturday the 28thFeburary,2015, the Jigme Namgyel School Thimphu held its 1st Parents and Teachers Meeting of the year. Among many matters of orientation for parents , one was about safe drinking water for the students. The choice put to vote by raising hands was: Provide daily a bottle of boiled water from home or prefer the proposal of the school to buy one water filter for each class to be paid collectively by parents. Majority raised their hands favouring to pay for the water filters. That somehow seemed perplexing. Why was it so difficult for parents to fill a water bottle with boiled water each day along with the packed lunched ?
It seems that after going through the difficult process of securing admissions for their wards in the School, the parents did not wish to appear opposing the school proposal. The school has PP class to Class VIII. There are more than 1200 students and each class has around 40 students. This means 40 water bottles would have to be filled from a single water filter. The classrooms are congested with some students having to sit on the inside ledges of classroom windows.
I feel that even after buying the water filters, the parents will have to continue sending filled water bottles with the pack lunches. Parents of younger students in any case come to the school during lunch break to feed their wards. Time and logistic just does not favour the water filter system as laudable as it may have intended to be.
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