27 February, 2015

Cutting intake of teachers to aggravate unemployment problems

I could still hear the echos of pledges that the present Government made to zero the staggering unemployment figure. They've pledged colossally which to their favor translated into votes, ascending them to the governance. The people harbored mammoth expectations that the Government would honor all of it. However, things aren't happening as pledged and people's expectations are receding ashore. Many hopes will have to encounter a fatal fate, albeit a few getting green signals.  One of the pledges to bring full employment is succumbing to ill fate, when the Government could no longer absorb more than half of the B.Ed graduates trained for becoming teachers. For 200 plus B.Ed graduates, it is really worrying as they are rendered helpless and cornered by Royal Civil Service Commission. There are  handful vacancies which would come as a shock absorber from private schools, but they might come wrapped with the underscoring criteria of a few years experience in teaching which many of them doesn't possess. Along with these unemployed B.Ed graduates, their parents who expected and were shielded from worries of unemployment would get entrapped into the whirlpool of unemployment.
Disappointed B.Ed graduates
For this reason, the belief that the Bhutanese are good planners is untrue. This rather is indicative of miserable failure of proper planning. Where has planning gone wrong, the B.Ed graduates are inducted into training as per Human Resource Plan. Unless we are able to find glitch spot, the problem of unemployment would be a national conundrum. Why suddenly such major surgery is prescribed by RCSC despite the fact that they were trained teachers to be inducted into Royal Civil Service Commission on completion. Until this time, B.Ed graduates were guaranteed employment. But why not today?

Has the Government or RCSC thought of any alternatives in employing them? Are the curriculum and pedagogy of B.Ed program tailored so that they can compete to seek employment in private and corporate sectors along with any other graduates? These are questions that RCSC or government have to answer. If the practice of recruiting teachers were that of other graduates, the issue would have been a trivial and not-talk-worthy kind of thing. But the kind of practice we do and training they're given during the program undisputedly deserves the Government's attention. I am totally against the decision of the Royal Civil Service Commission and silence of the present Government on this. The Government has to see it through the hearts of many unemployed graduates' parents. 

My humble submission to the RCSC and the Government is that there is a need for major surgery in the planning process of  Human Resource Requirement. This will solve an unemployment problem  in  lots of ways. I personally feel that there is a missing link in the process of planning for Human Resources Requirement. Please train required Teachers for teaching rather than imposing undue social problems. If seats were not enough to accommodate all the graduates, the information should have been passed four years back. More importantly, RCSC, RUB and the Government, please don't make the blunder by taking in huge number of students for B.Ed program. I think the Government and RCSC have to press second or third thought on this.

Smooth coordination among RCSC, RUB and the Government (MoLHR) is called for in a future to ward off such unemployment drought.


3 comments:

  1. I could not agree more. A thoughtful write-up.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Also we must understand that dozens of CNR graduates were loitering around Thimphu City. They have remained unemployed since last July.

    ReplyDelete
  3. From another side of the world, and another part of the age spectrum, California is currently disrupting the retirements of those who worked to educate children. I am dismayed that greed has hectored your system too. Make no mistake someone has their hands in the till.

    ReplyDelete

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