Education System and the "Ladder of Success"

In: The Spider and the Piglet: Proceedings of the First Seminar on Bhutan Studies. Thimphu, Centre for Bhutan Studies 2004, pp. 327-349 . ISBN 99936-14-19-X

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Abstract

Since the launch of development activities in 1961, English medium education seems to have replaced literacy in Dzongkha and Choeky as the means of climbing up the ladder of success. It appears that young people's preferences for a kind of education system, a training institute, and a course they choose is responsive to the government grading system of the civil service. It in turn means that the civil service grading system is a valid means to give incentives and dis-incentives to selected areas of the country's human resource development. It however, can be a useful means as long as the present notion of "success", i.e. going to a college, becoming a civil servant and hopefully becoming a dasho, stays unchanged. There is an emerging trend among younger people towards public corporations and the private sector and it remains to be seen whether or not the new trend is going to become mainstream.