How the lamp of learning was lit

The Bhutanese education system is 104 years old this Iron Female Rabbit year. It began to take shape when destiny gave to Bhutan her own son at the start of the last century.

On the fateful morning of December 17, 1907, Bhutan celebrated not only the crowning of Gongsar Ugyen Wangchuck as the first hereditary monarch, but also the birth of modern education system. It began small and modest, but it began in earnest.

“Despite the late start of education in the formal, organised sense of the term, there were already awakened minds and enlightened initiatives which lit the lamp of learning, albeit in the most modest surroundings, right from the beginning of the last century,” said the education minister, Lyonpo Thakur S Powdyel.

And one century on, the light of education burns brighter on the altars of hundreds of temples of learning across the country. Thanks to the visionaries, who answered the call of the forward moving nation, today Bhutan is well into the 21st century more confident and self-assured.

Haa school (the present-day Ugyen Dorji Higher Secondary School), the oldest school on record, was begun as a small Hindi-medium school way back in 1913 under Druk Thuksey Lopon Dago as the first head master. Thereafter, mobile court schools came into existence during the reign of first Druk Gyalpo and second Druk Gyalpo. During the reign of the second Druk Gyalpo, some dozen Hindi-medium schools spread across the country already paved the way for a formal modern education system. The third Druk Gyalpo, His Majesty Jigme Dorji Wangchuck started modern, western-style, English-medium schools in the 1950s. It marked the beginning of a new era in Bhutan’s modern education history. English was adopted as the medium of instruction in schools with the drafting of an education policy in 1975. Drujeygang Middle Secondary School in Dagana, which was started as a small private Chokey-medium school run in the monastic style, became the last school to adopt an English curriculum. In the early 1970s, Dzongkha was included in the curriculum in order to make it the national language.

Haa School became the model for English-medium schools. It moulded personalities like Lyonpo Yeshey Zimba, Lyonpo Kinzang Dorji, Lyonpo Chenkyap Dorji, the first woman councillor, Aum Dawa Dem, and former high court judge, Aum Gagay.

Much has changed since then. Much has evolved.

Then, Bhutan’s first scholars and academics were reluctant cow herders and farm workers who went into hiding at the sight of government officials who came to draft young boys into the few learning centres that were set up with bare minimum facilities. In the beginning, girls did not have to go into hiding. But not long after, they went to school out of their own volition or were ‘conscripted’.

Some four decades since the start of the first five-year plan in 1961, the government has expanded the modern education system from about 11 schools to 526 pre-primary, 546 primary, 151 lower secondary, 83 middle secondary, 42 higher secondary schools and 10 tertiary institutes in 2010.

The expansion of education system was accompanied by a rapid growth in the enrolment of students. From about 400 students in the early 1960s, the total enrolment increased in all levels of formal education and tertiary institutes to 1,92,454 in 2010 taught by 8,703 teachers. Among the factors contributing to the increasing enrolment, educationists say, are increased awareness of the value of education among parents and the government’s policy of ensuring education for all.

With the increasing enrollment rate at the primary level, Bhutan’s millennium development goal on the education front by 2015 could easily be achieved, although the last mile might prove the hardest. It is because there is a sizeable number of unreached children in the remote pockets of the country.

Adding to the number are the children with learning disabilities whose special learning needs are not adequately met by the system. This, according to the annual education statistics, 2010, is the key challenge.

Despite the rapid growth in numbers and size, the debate over the quality of education reared its ugly head in the 1990s and refused to go away.

“Education should be viewed and nurtured for the sake of education. Our present policy does not provide room enough for the child to realise his full potential,” said Wangchuk Rabten, a curriculum specialist with Department of Curriculum Research and Development in Paro.

Amid criticisms and debates, the education system is geared towards nurturing GNH citizens. School teachers and education officials have been trained to infuse the values of GNH in the curricula. Positive changes are already visible, education officials claim.

3 Responses to “How the lamp of learning was lit”

1. arunsaxena says:

   July 14, 2011 at 8:09 pm

   Dear Sir,
   I feel education system in Bhutan should develop wholistisc in nature . It should aim at developing a bhutanese child into a well balanced citizen of the country. He should be able to contribute tohis /her maximum for the national development. it should aim realising the aims &objectives of GNH.

   Reply
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