KP Sharma

Prime Minister Dr Lotay Tshering, in a recent live interactive session with the public on Facebook, reassured that the promotion criteria of school principals and vice principals (VPs) would be reviewed soon. 

The decision is in response to the complaints raised by the school VPs, who alleged that the current promotion criteria are unfair to them. The issue came into light when the Ministry of Education and Skills Development (MoESD) issued a notification on May 5, 2021, saying that a VP has to fulfill six criteria set for promotion from P2 to P1. One of them is the requirement of having served under a “specialist principal”.

Lyonchhen said that he met with the officials from the Royal Civil Service Commission (RCSC) and the MoESD to discuss the issue. 

He mentioned that he had requested the relevant authorities to explore the possibilities of evaluating the VPs based on their own merits, qualifications, and performance, rather than relying on their supervisors’ specialisation.

According to the Prime Minister, the issue was a result of RCSC’s standard procedure used for general civil servants’ promotion from P2 to P1.

To be promoted to a chief level (P1) in the civil service, individuals must compete for the vacant positions through competition, adding that such criteria should not be applied in case of VP’s promotion, lyonchhen further explained. 

“Even after 15 years in P2, individuals will not be promoted if there is no vacant position in P1 level,” he added.

Furthermore, the Prime Minister said that currently there are no well-defined criteria set with the ministry in deploying specialist and P1 level principals as well as VPs at P2 level.

According to an official from the human resource division in MoESD, apart from the requirement of serving under a specialist principal, achieving specific criteria poses a challenge as it depends on various factors that can make it difficult to attain.

He further stated that other requirements such as publications do not have a significant impact as most of the submitted publications for the promotion are from their master’s degree, which might not be relevant to their current roles.

He mentioned that the ministry’s working committee will be responsible for revising the promotion criteria and is expected to submit it to RCSC by the end of this month.