As a part of the academic partnership between the Royal Thimphu College and SEISA University of Japan, group of 10 students and one faculty are in Japan on a 2 week cultural visit from 9-24 February 2013.

During the 2 weeks exchange program, the RTC students will be exposed to a variety of enriching activities such as Japanese culture, history, customs, traditions, education, sports and language. They will also learn Japanese taiko drumming, Japanese flower arrangement, wearing the Japanese Kimono and attend the Japanese Noh Play.

The students will also attend lectures on contemporary concerns such as environmental issue by visiting the Tokyo Waste Disposal Factory, the Japanese Health Care System. During their visit they will also meet with mayors of cities in Japan like Oiso, and Soma city. As part of their cultural exposure, they will have opportunities to visit important sites such as Edo-Tokyo Construction Museum and Ninomiya bldg Matsushima, the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, the zoological gardens, the tsunami damaged areas, etc. The group will also participate in the SEISA Pre 10 Years Anniversary Symposium where they will be making a short presentation on Bhutan.

While RTC has hosted about three dozen international students at its campus in the past 3 years, this is the second time that RTC students have travelled abroad. This is also the first international travel experience for most of the participants and RTC hopes that the exposure gained will help the students to get a better understanding of Japan and of the world at large.

The funding for the students is based on the partnership with SEISA University. The costs for six students were fully or partially subsidized, four students have borne their own travel costs while the college has arranged for all the expenses in Japan in collaboration with SEISA. In return, RTC also hosted a similar number of Japanese students in September 2012 and is looking forward to hosting them again in March 2013.

RTC currently has international partnerships with three institutions in the US, Switzerland and Japan and hopes to keep expanding such collaborations so as to provide enriching opportunities for its students.