The Bhutanese Leading the way.
The teachers who served as supervisors and invigilators for the Bhutan Council for School Examinations and Assessment (BCSEA) examinations duties, which ended on 31 December 2022, were supposed to receive their TADA by the first week of January 2023, but they have not seen any of the payment.
According to the teachers, the details and documents required for a claim of TADA were submitted via electronic daily allowance and travel system (eDATS) during the first week of the examinations, and as per the instruction, they were supposed to get the payment by the first week of January 2023 but they haven’t received their TADA still.
“We all worked hard, and gave our best for the smooth function of the examinations. It is a cause of concern for all the teachers who have done their duty. We, at least, want to receive our TADA on time,” said one exam duty teacher.
An official from BCSEA clarified that this is the first time that TADA payment was delayed because e-DATS is new to examination conducting officials. Last year, it was still done on paper (TADA form) and it was much easier.
There are a few examination-conducting officials who provided wrong information and were not following the procedures, so the entire examinations conducting officials’ TADA payments are on hold.
There are more than 1,500 examinations conducting officials, and everything has to be done on e-DATS, where all the necessary procedures have to be followed, like attaching the office orders, and pictorial evidence, and if inter-dzongkhags examinations conducting officials are going from one dzongkhag to another, in the e-DATS, movement configuration was not done, and information was missing or some teachers provided the wrong TPN or bank account number, and were not following the date of arrival and departure.
BCSEA officials have to first approve the e-DATS, after which it is submitted to the Ministry of Finance (MoF). Sometimes the e-DATS gets clogged and slow. The official shared that they have been getting repeated calls, and even the finance officials are getting personal remarks.
If examination conducting teachers follow all the procedures, they can just approve and submit to the MoF, and the ministry cannot disburse the payment in piecemeal, it has to be done altogether because they also have procedures to follow.
“Initially, we were hopeful that by the first week of January 2023, payment would be done but with all these issues, it got delayed,” said the BCSEA official.
Another issue is that the Internet connectivity is very poor, especially in remote schools.
“We feel bad for delaying their TADA payment, and we are very grateful to our teachers who are always supporting and doing exam duty is not easy. This is our first time because it has gone electronic and our teachers are also doing it for the first time,” said the BCSEA official.
