Four Bhutanese students are studying in the Harrow International School in Bangkok on long-term scholarships that they received from the school recently.

The scholarships are worth Nu 40 million until the students graduate from the school after grade 12. On an average, a boarding student pays about Nu 1.8 million a year.

The school offered two types of scholarships to the Bhutanese students between grade eight.

Under the academic scholarship, three students aged between 10 and 12 years, will study more than four years in the school.

The students attended tests online and also met individually with an official from the school earlier this year.

The eldest one is 12 years old studying in grade 8, and the two other aged 10 years are studying GCSE, lower levels.

The school’s head master Michael Farley said, “We also went an extra step and for the first time offered the Head Master’s scholarship to an outstanding 11-year old student in year eight, who joined the school a week ago.”

The former student of Early Learning Center and Rosemary’s School, is a self-taught piano player, and a gymnast.

“The scholarships are long-term commitment from the school to serve the Bhutanese community,” the head master said.

The school’s motto is Leadership for a better world.

Michael Farley said: “We know that the leadership attributes of our young people will not simply develop by accident, so have an ambitious, broad programme of enrichment activities for service, sport, academics and the arts that allow them to develop the characteristics needed for them to be successful.”

The school’s alumni include prominent statesmen like Winston Churchill and Jawaharlal Nehru, among others.

“We won’t be able to sustain this amount of scholarship but we’ll provide scholarships in the future,” the head master said.

The school offers three categories of scholarship in music, academics, and sports.

“Scholarship will be considered for students with talents in sports, drama, music,” he said.

The school is an international school with students from Hawaii, Hong Kong, Myanmar, Vietnam, India, and Taiwan, among others. The school had Bhutanese students earlier.

Head master said: “We believe that it’s boarding that students get a complete emersion into a very broad educational programmes. It gives a very strong academic outcome and there are also many other things in a boarding school and very important to Harrow school is service to your community.”

The school opened two new boarding houses. “Because we’ve expanded our boarding capacity we’ve come to Bhutan,” he said.

The school partners with Global Reach office in Bhutan and he said it was a good match.

He said there is a strong historic link between the Royal families of Bhutan and Thailand.

“Obviously, there is a cultural link as well the two kingdoms being Buddhist,” he said.

“We decided that it would a good opportunity to encourage some Bhutanese students by offering scholarships,” he said.

Tshering Palden