The Bhutanese Leading the way.
Admission age to be 6 and teachers IWP issue to be resolved
The Cabinet recently approved the National Education Policy 2024.
The policy has been in the works since the Royal Kasho on Education Reform was issued in February 2021 and is heavily inspired by it.
The policy will be applicable to all like ECCDs, schools, tertiary education or colleges, TVETS, Special Educational Needs (SEN) and those learning at home.
A major change in the policy is that the age of admission to Pre-Primary is set back to 6 years of age from the current 5 years. However, children of 5 years and six months or more will also be allowed admission with priority for the older ages.
While the entire policy will be implemented from this year, itself, the age limit will be put in force only from the 2026 academic year.
The policy will revise the entire curriculum and ensure that it is at par with international curriculum. The curriculum, while being Bhutanese in nature, will ensure it is at par with Cambridge standards and is in line with 21st Century education. The curriculum revision will be from class PP to 12.
Work on the curriculum has been going on for the last two years. The curriculum will reduce unnecessary things, thus reducing some workload for teachers.
A major complaint of teachers has been the IWP of the RCSC, and the policy aims to resolve that issue.
The policy creates a solution for that by coming up with a Council for Teachers that will come up with standards and requirements for teachers.
To rid teachers of the IWP headache, the policy is coming up with the Bhutan Professional Standards for Teachers, whereby, they will be evaluated every few years and receive promotions for doing well.
The policy will also create the National Teaching Service for teachers. Currently, fresh graduates can become contract teachers, but under the policy, all teachers will have to undergo the courses in Samtse and Paro Colleges of Education.
The policy supports private sector participation in higher education, like private colleges.
The policy will create a National Education Council, likely to be chaired by the Prime Minister, which will take decisions with regards to higher education like colleges, and will facilitate coordination between the Ministry of Education and Skills Development and the Royal University of Bhutan.
This is important, as currently, MoESD and RUB function independently of each other, when in fact there should be close coordination between the two, given that school students inevitably will end up in colleges.
The policy also does a lot of digital onboarding with all recent technologies, like Artificial Learning, Machine Learning, etc. It also aims to use more technology and ICT in classrooms rather than just the conventional approach.
STEM Education is being given a major focus, and the policy aims to go for STEM schools. A pilot STEM school will be set up and depending on how it does it will be replicated.
SEN Education is also an important part of the policy, whereby, there will be SEN schools in all Dzongkhags and efforts will be made to increase the number of SEN teachers.
While the paper got the broad outlines of the policy, we could not get the policy document. When the paper requested for a copy of the policy, we were told that some changes asked for by the Cabinet need to be made and it will then be sent to schools first.
When it comes to ECCD, a new thing is home based ECCDs in areas where are only one or two students and no ECCDs, and here, an ECCD teacher will do home based intervention by going to the homes and also training parents.
Student well being is an important part of the policy, in terms of mental health and a more holistic approach to education.
The policy aims to prepare students for a fast-changing world and have skills like technological skills, critical thinking, etc.
Schools will also get more autonomy in budget and staffing.
The policy will also set Central Schools as centers of excellence with a full range of facilities from smart classrooms and labs to digitization. By such moves, the aim is to reduce the gap between rural and urban education.
The 2021 Royal Kasho on Education Reform said, “We must revisit our curriculum, pedagogy, learning process, and assessments to either transform or rewrite them in view of the challenges and opportunities of the twenty-first century. Otherwise, continued focus on textbooks and content without integrating technology and social learning risks perpetuating passive modes of learning. Then, whatever education our children acquire today will become irrelevant and obsolete when they graduate.”
The Kasho called for developing students’ abilities for critical thinking, creative thinking, and learning to be life-long learners, prepare them to be inquisitive, to be problem-solvers, to be interactive and collaborative, using information and media literacy as well as technological skills.
“We must prioritise self-discovery and exploration, and involve learners in the creation of knowledge rather than making them mere consumers of it. We must make STEM subjects part of their everyday language.”
The Kasho also says that to ensure that teachers are not disconnected from their students, professional development of teachers should integrate technology, digitalization, artificial intelligence, and automation.
The Kasho says in the process of reforming our education system, we must aim for standards and goals which are of the highest possible order.
