YK Poudel and Pranisha Acharya

Less than two weeks after the Prime Minister announced that the government will create online platforms for Dzongkha learning at the sixth Meet-the-Press on July 26, the Department of Culture and Dzongkha Development (DCDD) has endorsed Educare Skills as the National Online Dzongkha Learning Platform.

This has been done through a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between DCDD and iBest, signed on August 2.

iBest, a private training institute, production studio, and consultancy firm, developed and launched the online learning platform six months back.

According to the MoU, DCDD will provide free subscriptions to Educare Skill platform for all Bhutanese children, in Bhutan and overseas.  In the first three months of the pilot phase, DCDD will support children three years and above, including students from Class PP to Class IV.

Depending on the success of the pilot, DCDD will extend free subscription to a larger group of students. DCDD will review all the content developed by Educare Skill to ensure quality and standards.

Speaking at the signing of MoU, Home Affairs Minister Tshering said that computerised learning has evolved over time but is available mostly in English.  “Having such contents in Dzongkha will offer diverse experiences, especially to the students and help promote Dzongkha language.”

The CEO of Educare Skill, Tharchen, said that through the current arrangement and support of DCDD, Educare Skill will be able to enhance the development of audio-visual learning content in alignment with school curriculum to promote Dzongkha.

“For now, our focus is to make adequate learning and reading materials in Dzongkha to improve speaking, writing, and reading competencies, which is a major challenge among children these days,” he said.

The Chief Language Development Officer of DCDD, Ugyen Dorji, said that the platform offers creative 2-D and 3-D experience that will enable Bhutanese children, which is visually appealing, engaging, and designed to enhance Dzongkha learning.

He said that interested students and parents can subscribe to the platform and access the contents. “Those parents, especially of children between class PP and IV, who cannot afford the subscription fee can register with DCDD and get free subscriptions. DCDD will bear the subscription fee for Educare Skill,” he said.

Educare Skill will offer an institutional package of its membership plan making it a freely accessible platform for all students.

DCDD will assist Educare Skill with technical assistance, review and expert inputs for meeting the standards of the Dzongkha learning content.

The Educare Skill platform includes read-aloud videos, animated series, nursery rhymes, and interactive gamified learning. The platform features three animated series, each consisting of 12 episodes that blend entertainment with valuable lessons.

The platform also offers 24 animated episodes of nursery rhymes, as well as over 360 colorful read-aloud stories, available in both Dzongkha and English, designed to facilitate easy learning of Dzongkha.

So far, Educare Skill has developed over 450 episodes of content, with new material being published every month. Over 100 Bhutanese professionals have developed the content. More than 1,000 episodes of Dzongkha content for classes PP to XII will be released on the platform soon.