The Bhutanese Leading the way.
Around 20 University graduates will go to Thailand Vocational Training Institutes (VTI) as English teachers under a labor ministry initiative.
Lyonpo Dorji Wangdi said it was a win-win initiation which was planned from 2008. However it could not take off due to the clashes between Royal Civil Service Commission (RCSC), the labor ministry and the education ministry.
Initially, the ministry assigned the education ministry to select experienced English teachers to teach Thai VTI trainees for one year. The only glitch for the program was the Bhutan Civil Service Rules (BCSR) which doesn’t have provisions to send teachers on deputation board.
Therefore the education ministry dropped the initiative with the knowledge that it would be an incentive for teachers who performed well.
Similarly “In Thai civil service rules, Instructors were not able to come for a long term and could hinder in their promotion for violating rules and regulations,” said Lyonpo Dorji Wangdi.
He said, Thai trainers couldn’t be invited as academic years of the countries couldn’t be synchronized.
The labor ministry had already shortlisted candidates for the selection interview to teach English in Thailand.
Therefore the labor ministry with this initiation expects to get some technical professionals. They could facilitate or introduce new courses and arrange particular institute for one training course and gather all the financial and human resources in place and train efficiently.
This would help pave the way for human resources from Thai government to Technical Training Institutes and hospitality industry in Bhutan, which is in dearth of competent instructors.
“We have plan to restructure all Technical Training Institutes (TTIs) as centre for excellence and introduce research and innovation in the next five year plan,” the labor minister said.
The Thai economy is fueled by tourism and it is backed up by technical professionals graduating from Thai VTIs. It has around 430 VTIs under the Office of Vocational Commission (OVC) and it is the main man power supply to the tourism industry.
“They were in need of competent English teachers, while we were in need of human resources,” said Lyonpo Dorji Wangdi.
The selected candidates from Royal University of Bhutan (RUB) and Ministry of Education (MoE) will undergo short training courses.
