"Teaching the teacher"
Bhutanese teachers attachment
Case Study
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Bhutan is a small country bordering on the two most populous nations in the world; China to the North and India to the South. The 630,000 people of Bhutan live mainly in small villages and farms scattered across rugged mountain slopes.
Buddhism is the predominant religion and it plays a major role in Bhutanese life. There are around 3,000 monasteries in the country, and monks within these monasteries influence day to day living in all matters from life and death to physical well being. Buddhists believe happiness lies in the Middle Path, balancing between the traditional and the modern. Aspects of development reflect this - preserving the country's historical monasteries and temples, controlling tourism, and enforcing environmental laws.
Bhutan changed from a medieval land of scattered villages into a modern state in the 17th century, becoming a Buddhist nation which was followed by a dual system of governance. In 1907, this system culminated in a hereditary monarchy where the role of ruler is usually passed directly from the ruler to his or her children. Bhutan is currently ruled by King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, who likes to talk about 'Gross National Happiness' rather than national wealth.
The Bhutanese government places a high value not only on happiness, but also on women and children. One of its goals is to see universal access to primary education by the year 2000. It is currently only around 72%. One of the main reasons for this is a lack of properly trained teachers.
Schools in isolated regions of the country can be very hard to get to. Students may walk up to eight hours a day over rugged mountain terrain getting to and from school. Even if there were more schools around, there are not enough trained teachers to work in them. In many places there is one teacher to every 38 students in primary school, but there can be as many as 43 students in one class.
Small isolated schools often have only a few students in each grade. When trained teachers are scarce, how does the school cope with this? Many Australian schools in this position have multigrade classes in which one teacher teaches several different age groups at once. Australia is now sharing its experience in this type of teaching with its colleagues in Bhutan.
In 1998 UNICEF Australia, with the support of the Australian Government's overseas aid program, got together with Bhutan on a project to improve access to education in this rugged country, particularly the ratio of teachers to students. With money provided by these two organisations important resources including books, teaching and learning aids were purchased that were previously in short supply.
Another part of this project involved bringing eight Bhutanese teachers to Australia to train for 40 days at the University of New England. One of the main areas the Bhutanese teachers received training in was teaching composite or multi-grade classes (classes with several different age groups). This meant that upon returning to Bhutan they could teach different grades in one class.
This is an important skill for teachers in remote areas, as class numbers are usually small. Multi-grade classes allow different age groups to study together in the one class, and multiple-grade levels to operate in any school. Some of the training given to these teachers on combined classes while studying in Australia included the needs of children in remote areas, school management, co-operative learning, student progress, and establishing community support.
After their training, these Bhutanese teachers returned to teaching in isolated areas of their country. The Bhutanese students weren't the only ones to benefit from their Australian experience. Having developed a range of new knowledge and skills in Australia, they were able to train other teachers in Bhutan. Ultimately the assistance given to six teachers helped many more people in this rugged country.
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