Education: The education ministry issued a notification to the dzongkhags and thromdes on August 22 to begin reviewing the school curriculum at schools under its respective areas.

“We have already issued the notification to the dzongkhags and thromde to initiate the national school curriculum conference,” department of school education chief programme officer Phuntsho Wangdi said.

This notification follows education minister Norbu Wangchuk’s recent announcement of a  plan to conduct a national school curriculum review. Speaking at the dzongkhag education officer (DEO) conference yesterday Lyonpo said that there are serious issues with the curriculum.

“Not a single teacher I spoke to about the current school curriculum told me that our curriculum is good. That’s why we have to have a national school curriculum review,” he said.

The ministry decided to review the curriculum following public feedback including teachers and parents on errors and outdated information in textbooks such as geography, social studies and economics.

National Council chairperson Dasho (Dr) Sonam Kinga also posted on his blog several factual, spelling and grammar errors in the class V social studies textbook.

The curriculum review is aimed at making it more relevant to the emerging times the ministry’s notification states. The process will include teachers, subject experts, academics, parents and even students.

The conference is being held to provide guidance on designing immediate, short, medium and long-term strategic plans for curriculum reform.

At the school level, all 600 schools are required to organise two-day conferences. On the first day, deliberations will be held for each subject.

During the deliberation the teachers can point out issues with relevancy and accuracy of information in different subjects. The schools are also expected to invite parents, students and any interested members of society to the conference.

The findings of the school level conference will then be submitted to the dzongkhag and thromdes where the education officers with principals, teachers, among others, will conduct another review. Once complete, it will then be forwarded to the education ministry where subject experts, academics and representatives from other relevant agencies will conduct a review.

The DEO conference began yesterday in Thimphu.

Tempa Wangdi 

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