Bhutanese Teachers' Pedagogical Orientation in the Primary Classes: A Factor on Quality Education

In recent years, Bhutan has taken huge steps to provide education to all Bhutanese children. However, the poor performance of the high school graduates in the Call Centre interview and their failure to get selected for employment due to their poor communication skills in English ignited widespread debate amongst the general public on the quality of education in Bhutan. Educators believe that this claimed decline is a misperception rather than the reality. Thus, this paper attempts to study this issue by examining the pedagogical practices in primary schools through teaching observations and interviews with a sample of teachers from different schools in western Bhutan. The findings indicate that teacher dominated lessons generally prevail in the primary classrooms with detrimental student learning outcomes. This situation has implications about teacher education programmes and other stakeholders. Thus, it sends a message that there is a risk of declining quality in education if appropriate measures are not adopted.