The education ministry will recruit 1,630 trained teachers by 2020

NA: By 2020, the education ministry will recruit 1,630 trained teachers, according to the teacher requirement projection worked out by the labour and education ministries.

As per the projection, the next academic year alone requires 551 teachers, 19 more than what Samtse College of Education and Paro College of Education will together produce.

Another 363 posts will be vacated for trained teachers in 2017 and 270 in 2018. For 2019, the education ministry will recruit additional 224-trained teachers and another 222 in 2020, according to the projection.

Labour minister Ngeema Sangay Tshempo presented the projection at the question hour session of the National Assembly yesterday. He was responding to Dophuchen-Tading Member of Parliament (MP) Tek Bahadur Subba, who asked on how the education ministry was basing its trained teacher recruitment and enrolment in the two colleges of education.

“Soon 388 Shedras and Rabdeys in the country will also recruit an English teacher each,” he said adding that 121 teachers have already been sent to Thailand and seven to private schools in India.

Nanong-Shumar MP Dechen Zangmo initially questioned the education minister on how the ministry will make employment available for B Ed graduates who are due to be in the job market soon.

Education minister Mingbo Dukpa said there are currently 650 vacancies for teachers available in government schools. The vacancies were created after 226 community based contract teachers left on completion of their contract, about 40-50 superannuated, another 140 left for studies, 118 contract teachers completed their contracts and the two percent teacher attrition rate the ministry sees annually.

Lyonpo Mingbo Dukpa said recruiting teachers depend on the student enrolment. It also would require discussion with the Royal Civil Service Commission. In 2014, in a month at least Nu 2.42M (million) was spent on paying teachers, he said.

Meanwhile, Panbang MP Dorji Wangdi questioned the Prime Minister whether Bhutan was still on track to achieve the goal of Economic Self Reliance by 2020.

Prime Minister said answers for the question would be available after the end of the 11th Plan, while discussing the 12th Plan. He informed the house that after the completion of the hydroelectric projects, Bhutan can choose to remain without external funding provided no further expenditure is incurred on basic infrastructures.

Leader of the Opposition (Dr) Pema Gyamtsho also sought clarification from the Prime Minister on whether the widespread perception of officials responsible for taking decision within the bureaucracy were not doing so but delegating task to committees to advert being implicated in corrupt practices was true.

“Such practice would affect the timely delivery of service,” he said.

Lyonchoen Tshering Tobgay said that it was better to form a committee to reach a decision than to get involved in corrupt practices. He said if people were affected with untimely services from some agencies, then the government should be informed for it to address the problem immediately.

He also informed the house that the government has already come up with various initiatives such as Government to Citizen (G2C) service and Annual Performance Agreement to improve service delivery.

Nirmala Pokhrel

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