More than taekwondo

May 26, 2010Posted inEducation
Thimphu Club won the most medals in the recent under-15 tae­kwondo championships. Thimphu Primary School came in second. And Zilukha LSS third. 105 students from 9 clubs had participated in the championships that had been organized to commemorate Bhutan Taekwondo Federation’s silver jubilee. Not bad, I had initially thought, till I looked at the medal standings properly. Of the 9 clubs only two were from government schools. Five of them, on the other hand, were from private schools. The remaining two were not school based – one, the winner, is part of the Federation, and the other, White Tigers,…

TPS book week

May 22, 2010Posted inEducation
Mountain Echoes, a four-day literary festival in the capital, organized by the India-Bhutan Friendship Association, has concluded successfully. Coincidentally, Thimphu Primary School organized a lesser known, but no less important, literary festival of their own last week. Students pledged to stay away from television during all of “book week”, yielding, instead, to the delights of storybooks. They read books, wrote and told stories, designed book posters, donated books, bought books, and quizzed each other about books and authors. And yesterday, at the final day of the TPS book week, the students put on a costume parade for their parents…

Graduating students

September 20, 2009Posted inEducation, Youth9 Comments
About 1,300 graduates are currently attending this year’s National Graduate Orientation Programme. And, like last year, the opposition party has not been included in the programme. So today, when I heard that the graduates were hosting a cultural show for the public, I rushed to the Nazhoen Pelri. I’m glad I went. Our graduates are obviously talented. And they put on quite a show. From boedra and rigsar to Bhutanese rock and hip hop, the graduates entertained us with a range of performances. Not bad, considering that they’ve been together for barely ten days. The chief counselor, Namgyal Dorji,…

Happy Teachers’ Day

May 2, 2009Posted inEducation, People
Gakiling has only one school, a community primary school. It is in Rangtse, a small, impoverished village located four walking days from the nearest motor road in Haa. Tshering Dorji is its principal.In 2006, after teaching for about three years in remote schools in Samtse, Lopen Tshering volunteered to go to Rangtse to establish a community primary school. There he met enough children to start the school. And he saw a community eager to build their school. So together, they – farmers, children, and teacher – erected a two-room hut that would become Rangtse’s first classrooms.Early the following year,…

Educating doctors

March 27, 2009Posted inEducation, Government
On 23rd March, the Ministry of Education announced rules on the recently approved medical scholarship grants (see the rules). The rules clarified how the government will implement the grants. But we should be concerned at least on two counts.One, on the impact on current private students. According to the rules private students currently studying in universities recognized jointly by RCSC, MOH and MOE in the SAARC region, Thailand and Cuba are eligible to apply for the scholarship. Of them 15 will be awarded the medical grant.Obviously, every private medical student by now expects the grant. And convincing them that…

Opposing the oppostion

March 19, 2009Posted inEducation, Government, Media
My last entry made Di demand that the opposition leader oppose the government’s decision directly and firmly. This is what she said: “dear OL, are u not going to say anything to oppose this directly to the cabinet? this is wrong wrong wrong. this goes against every morals, values and ethics we have ever been taught. this is showing us that the people who are incapable and the least deserving get the best in life. It is a mockery to everything we have been taught is right. Do u not have duties and rights, as the opposition leader, to…

A bold scheme

March 17, 2009Posted inEducation, Government
Our government’s decision to award grants to private medical students is bold. But it is wrong.It is bold because it shows that our government can take unconventional measures to get things done – in this case to train more doctors.But it is wrong because awarding grants to private medical students will not increase the number of doctors. Current private medical students will graduate and become doctors even if the government doesn’t intervene. So helping them will not add to the pool of doctors.It is wrong because the unexpected grant will benefit current private medical students unfairly. They would enjoy…

Medical grants

March 16, 2009Posted inEducation, Government
Many of you have commented on the government’s decision to provide financial assistance to private medical students. And some have telephoned me.I don’t know enough about this sudden development to comment publicly. So I’ll talk to people who do know. And learn.I notice that all the comments I’ve received so far denounce our government’s decision. So I urge those in support of the decision to share your views.

Solving problems

March 4, 2009Posted inEducation
Today is World Maths Day.And children throughout the world are celebrating mathematics by solving mental arithmetic questions online. Their goal is to set a new world record in the number of questions they collectively answer in 48 hours. But the real objective is to make maths fun. And to promote numeracy among students.Last year more than 1 million children from 20,000 schools and 150 countries set a new world record by correctly answering 182,455,169 questions in 48 hours. The organizers of the event already predict that, by tomorrow, another world record will have been set.The competition began at 5PM…

Inspiring Bhutan

February 24, 2009Posted inEducation
I went on a field trip today. I went to see the Royal Thimphu College in Ngabiphu. The college is spread elegantly over 25 acres of gently sloping blue pine forest about 10 km due south of the capital. (See RTC website)The construction of the college, which began only in October 2007, is already nearing completion. And by July this year, Bhutan’s first private college will have admitted its first students.These students will be fortunate. Dormitories, classrooms, auditorium, sports facilities, gymnasium, dining hall, cafeteria, club house … the facilities they’ll enjoy are equal to those of the best colleges…

Committed vision

February 20, 2009Posted inEducation, Monarchy
“My duty is to worry every single day about our people and country. And to voice these worries frankly so that we do not get carried away, get caught unawares, or become complacent” commanded His Majesty the King to the teacher graduates during their convocation on 17th February (read full text). His Majesty then articulated his concerns about our education system with the clarity, earnestness and sense of urgency that comes from “worrying every single day”.Our education system has recently come under increasing fire. Yet seemingly little is being done. So His Majesty’s counsel is timely. No doubt, the…

Teaching differently

February 19, 2009Posted inEducation
Team teaching – a new pedagogic method practiced in urban schools to address classroom shortages and high enrolment; two teachers teach one class; while one teaches, the other monitors the class and helps students; the two teachers share homework correction duties. This week, Kuensel wrote about “team teaching” being introduced in Thimphu schools. Multigrade teaching – a pedagogic method practiced in community schools to address teacher shortages; one teacher teaches several classes together, in the same classroom; that teacher teaches all the subjects for all the classes; and that teacher does all the homework correction, for all the students.…

Education for all

January 23, 2009Posted inEducation, Religion
Consider this: Education will get Nu 9,489.130 million for capital investments during the 10th plan. That is almost Nu 9.5 billion to develop the general education system. That works out to almost 13% of the 10th plan’s entire capital budget. That also works out to more than Nu 60,000 for each of the 157,112 students currently in the education system.I’m happy that the government is investing heavily in education. Education has been drawing a lot of flak lately – standards are perceived to be falling, schools deteriorating, and school enrolment increasing at the expense of quality. So I’m glad…

Remote schooling

January 14, 2009Posted inEducation, Local Government
The National Assembly, our nation’s highest legislative body, spent a good 30 minutes yesterday talking about a school in Gasa. The issue was tabled by the Honourable MP from Gasa, Dasho Damcho Dorji, the other opposition member, on behalf of the people of Gasa. The people want the government to reverse its decision to downgrade Gasa LSS to a primary school. The people argue that if their school is downgraded, fewer of their children will be willing to continue their studies, after completing Class VI, in the boarding school in distant, wetter and hotter Jeyshong. Lyonpo Thakur Singh, our…

Educating the centre

January 13, 2009Posted inEducation, Local Government
Gakiling has 13 villages. Some of the poorest parts of our country can be found in this cluster of villages that lie along the remote parts of upstream Amochu. Together, the 13 villages have just one school – Rangtse Community School, which opened two years ago after Her Majesty Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck visited the area. None of the villages is connected by car road. Most don’t even have mule tracks. So the school in Rangtse is not accessible to children living in other villages. And the children can’t live in Rangtse, because the school does not have boarding…