The Bhutanese Leading the way.
Temporary teachers will be recruited from next month to fill the current shortage of 400 teachers in schools across the country say officials of the education ministry.
The maximum shortage is in Dzongkha and general subject and this is because of the shift in policy that dis allows general teachers to teach Dzongkha unlike in past. This was decided during the education conference held in January this year.
“A total of 316 temporary teachers will be recruited in September where the contract will extend to December 2018 to ensure the effective and normal teaching learning activity in classes,” Chief Human Resource Officer Kinley Gyeltshen said. “Since some are returning from study leave and extraordinary leave, the requirement has reduced to 316.”
The ministry will work with the labour ministry to provide stipend for the temporary teachers for training and assessment. “It is to keep those teachers within the pool so whenever there is shortage we can directly recruit without going through various processes of announcement and interviews, provided that the teacher has good track record,” he said.
A 10 day training will be provided to the 316 temporary teachers on transformative pedagogy, lesson planning, teaching learning method development and English and Dzongkha for effective communication. “We would mostly prefer the subject specific ones and general graduate,” Kinley Gyeltshen said.
The proposal for the recruitment of temporary teachers were presented to Royal Civil Service Commission (RCSC) earlier this year and approved on 23rd August. Kinley Gyeltshen said although such a recruitment system is not mentioned in civil service act, RCSC cooperated learning the critical need.
Kinley Gyeltshen said the main reason for the teacher shortage is because of the reduced working hours of teachers. The other reason was exclusion of principals and vice principals from the teacher requirement exercise. “67 teachers were given the post of VP whereas some teachers were transferred to the ministry,” she said.
Other reasons for the shortage are voluntary resignation, extraordinary leave (EOL), study leave and maternity leave. There are 175 teachers on maternity leave this year, for which 67 have been replaced on contract to date.
Kinley Gyeltshen said at least 70 teachers will be taking study leave every year due to education ministry’s mandate for every teacher to acquire a masters degree. “The 20% of the shortage is dominated by EOL and 30% by study leave till this July end,” he said. “But it is ensured that no classes are left without teacher and the general teachers has been taking care of the classes so far.”
The teacher requirement exercise tool application was deployed last month with which the requirement of teacher will be immediately be known. “It use to take ages to get the details and requirement of the teachers in past and now with this application, we can now track the lack and excess of teachers in each school,” he said.
There are currently about 7,800 teachers in 612 schools excluding principals, vice-principals, those on EOL, study leave and maternity leave.
