Deteriorating
the quality of education in Bhutan
Today, Bhutan’s the Quality of Education became the talk of
the market. People constantly debate and discuss about it in online forums, in
hotels and bars, in homes and offices, informally and formally, over the
country. It became national concern and scholars and educationists are working
on it. Some says quality has deteriorated and on the other hand some debate no.
To comment on this topic there has to be a valid data and statistics.
Therefore, in this essay I have mentioned few points to prove that the “Quality
of Education is deteriorating”.
Most of the teachers in Bhutan are teacher not
in love with their professions. They come to teaching when they fail to get
selected for any other professions. It is the destiny that brought them, they
believe. Trainees (here in PCE, Paro) would be teachers very soon but if we ask
if she/he love the teaching profession, one will say---‘NO, I don’t want to but
I have no option as I didn’t qualify for other profession or higher Education’.
I too am same. Teaching wasn’t my choice, but as of now I love to be a teacher.
And I will try my best to improve the quality education.
This is happening because teachers are
underappreciated and receives very little respect, despite working hard under
poor conditions. Does anyone love working so hard when it is not appreciated
and valued? I am damn sure, nobody like it rather it undermines the faith and
commitment. Education secretary, Aum
Sangay Zam, has told in one of the article in Kuensel that to retain
teachers they don’t give no objection certificates (NOC) especially to
Mathematics and Science teachers to apply elsewhere, because there’s already a
shortage of these teachers though there are teachers who want to leave the job.
What does it mean? Forcing a person to be a teacher when he/she is not willing
to work? How can one possibly let the
horse to drink the water when it is not at all thirsty? If he/she doesn’t have
interest in teaching, how can we say that he/she will teach well? We have to
think more to improve the quality of education. Our education quality will not
improve when those de-motivated and uncommitted teachers are involved in the
system.
Yesterday I was in front of the laptop and mind
mapping to starts with my essay, many points didn’t strike my mind so just to
refresh I logged on to face book where I have chatted with one of my friend who
is currently studying in India, “what is the difference between the Bhutanese
student and Indian students?” I asked him and the immediate answer he gave me
was, “When I come here and sit with Indian friends I feel like I haven’t learnt
anything.” So, I realized that Bhutanese children receive free Education unlike
India. This system has actually overwhelmed the perception of the Bhutanese
students to learn because they don’t feel the pinch to get Educated. People
without experiencing the pain don’t understand the value of Education and they
don’t study at all despite attending the classes. When students sit in the class just for
attendance and warming the bench, we can never expect the quality of education
to improve, rather it would deteriorate spontaneously. Thus, it brings down the
Quality of Education.
School functioning without conducive environment
is another reason why quality of education is declining. For example, school
like Gangzor Primary school in my village has no proper facilities. No class
room for class III students. So, parents were called and they constructed
bamboo temporary hut, with the plastics roof. During summer no rains drained
out. The classes were overcrowded with no space for the teachers to move
through for active interactions. That lack of space did not allow teachers to
use their active and innovative teaching methods. How can we study in a place
like that? Where is the environment for the learners?
Another factor solely responsible for the
decline in quality of education is the students’ attitudes. They come to class without any interest in
learning. Thus, it declines the quality
of the Education. If we compare between the present youth and the learners of
the past decades we will see that the students at present are not very
interested in school educations. As compare to my father who studied up to
class eight, I am still far behind in English to him. Today, especially the
children don’t like learning Dzongkha. Today Graduates are doing three months
course before they seats for PE, because they are not able to write application
in Dzongkha. If we go around and ask our trainee teachers to write the
application in Dzongkha, I think maximum will fail including me.
Every coin has two sides and let’s not forgets
this universal truth. Though Technologies has helped people in many ways but it
too has disadvantages. A modern technology like mobile phone is useful for
communication but writing SMS hampers youth’s grammatical structures and
spellings. Another reason is due to internet. These days students
spend most of their time in internet rather than either playing or reading books.
It said that physical activity such as playing outside also helps in improving
the minds of a person. But rather than doing that, they play online games which
only disturbs their mind and consumes most of their time. Also online chatting
makes their written as well as spoken language decline tremendously which
ultimately affects their education.
Using calculator has done more harm than the help. Students who use calculators
from his early school days don’t know the product of 9 and 8 because they depend
too much on calculator.
The quality of education is declining because
there are good numbers of untrained teachers employed in the various private
schools of Bhutan. Similarly, in the Government Schools also, we have contract
teachers, teaching without having any proper teaching practices. Class XII pass outs are teaching the
students, how will they teach well when
we (trained for three years) couldn’t do the presentation well, how will they
apply the different teaching strategies for different learners and teaching
skills for different topics? These are serious threat to the quality of
educations. When those trained and experienced teachers face difficulties in
managing classroom and keeping students engaged to learn, imagine those
untrained teachers. How do we expect not to decline the quality of educations
when the students are taught and brought up by the untrained teachers?
Quality of Education will keep on declining if no measure is
taken care by the Department. Education Ministry introduced the “Double
Promotion System” for the students; not based on the academic merit, but be
given to students, who are late beginners, i.e., starting school at the age of
eight, nine or 10. As I have seen in Ganzor Primary shool where double promoted
students of class six doesn’t know how to frame a simple proper sentence. New
system was to fast-track older students, who meet the minimum academic
requirement for higher classes, so that they can cope with the higher levels
according to their age. But where is the quality that they are taking care of?
Though they are doing this to reduce the number of drop-outs and also to help
everybody receive basic education but they are neglecting the fact that it will
deteriorate the Quality of Education in future adding taste to the already
deteriorated quality.
To conclude, unappreciated teacher, free education, under-prepared teachers, lack
of appropriate curricular resources, poor learning environment and little
in-service training for teachers were the main reason why classroom practices
were ineffective, which finally leads to decline in the quality of education.
As many schools in Bhutan lack essential infrastructure and curricular reform
is quiet by a lack of sufficient orientation and resource support to deliver
the curriculum. And teachers, the agents of providing quality education, work
in poor conditions and have low motivation.
