- Title
- Bhutan: experiences of education change in a compact context
- Creator
- Zangmo, Dechen; Sharp, Heather; O'Toole, John Mitchell; Burke, Rachel
- Relation
- Bhutan Journal of Research and Development Vol. 4, Issue 1, p. 17-28
- Relation
- http://www.rub.edu.bt/index.php/journals
- Publisher
- Royal University of Bhutan
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2015
- Description
- In an expanding globalised world where education is considered central to economic growth, aid-funded projects that seek to improve the educational outcomes of school-aged children are increasingly common between large, comparatively wealthy countries and smaller so-called ‘developing’ nations. The curriculum and teacher development projects are usually presented as partnerships and typically aim to provide students in the partner nation with access to purportedly more progressive educational opportunities. Aid-funded projects in smaller educational jurisdictions, oftentimes seek to find a balance between depending on international policy borrowing and finance and local developments that both form and respond to local priorities. This article investigates the case of an educational partnership involving Bhutan. Using a qualitative approach, this article reports on the outcomes of an analysis of curriculum documents, interviews conducted with key stakeholders, and classroom observations directly connected to the 2006 adoption of the Process Writing Approach (PWA) in the Bhutanese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) curriculum. The critical examination of the logistics of implementing this curriculum intervention in the Bhutanese context reveals the complex interplay of culture, economics and hegemony that frequently characterises curriculum innovation but is often less visible in larger, more bureaucratically involved jurisdictions. This instance is also significant for the absence of teacher resistance to curricular innovation; a factor that contrasts with the experiences of other nations instituting similar changes in teaching methodology. Specifically, this article reports on the logistical experiences of Bhutanese English teachers during the curriculum reform and its implementation in their English classrooms, five years after becoming mandatory within the context of a jurisdiction that has a high degree of teacher compliance. Results indicate that, despite teacher good will and dedication, the implementation of the PWA was an ultimate failure for reasons including lack of professional development, paucity of resources, and a cultural clash between the individualistic intentions of the PWA and the collectivist culture of education in Bhutan. Researchers recommend that future education and curriculum innovations imported to by Western countries are better resourced and complement existing cultural mores of the host nation.
- Subject
- Bhutan; education; aid-funded projects; developing nations
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1328814
- Identifier
- uon:26000
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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