“Chiphen Rigpel” project in Bhutan leaves lasting impact

Chiphen Rigpel – an ambitious human capacity building project funded by Government of India and launched by The Royal Government of Bhutan in partnership with Government of India, on the sidelines of the SAARC summit held in Bhutan has successfully completed 5 years after it was initiated on April 30, 2010. This project was designed to empower the people of Bhutan to transition into a modern Knowledge Society. NIIT Ltd was the implementing agency.
As part of the Chiphen Rigpel project, NIIT has imparted ICT skills to over 1,25,000 learners and in turn touched the lives of more than 30% of Bhutan’s population. The project has six components that include -enabling e-governance, empowering teachers and taking ICT to schools, enabling employability, furnishing tertiary institutes with ICT training centres, reaching the unreached all over the nation, and managing e-waste. Chiphen Rigpel reaches out to all sections of Bhutanese society including national leaders, civil servants, local government, teachers, schoolchildren, youth, underprivileged children and the monastic body. NIIT imparted computer education & computer aided education services to 168 Government Higher Secondary Schools covering classes 7 to 12. It provided 5,204 certifications to the teachers thus enabling them to use ICT tools in the teaching – learning process to enhance their effectiveness. NIIT provided e-governance literacy to 7396 government Leaders, civil servants, officials, managers and executives. Under the project NIIT set up 16 training facilities to provide high-end IT training, vocational IT training, basic IT literacy and provide 20,541 certifications. Udai Singh, Chief Strategy Officer, NIIT Ltd, said, “After 5 years we can proudly say that we have successfully enabled Bhutan to achieve the objectives of this project & build a strong foundation for its continuing journey towards empowering citizens through ICT and building a knowledge society.”