UC Santa Cruz

The Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan, where images of magical splendor obscure its challenges, provides a viewpoint from which to understand the contradictions that emerging economies face as they move towards mass education. Isolated from the outside world in every sense except for the mythologies that surround it, Bhutan is attempting to move from a basic agrarian societal framework as found in the feudal 1800s into the whirl of a technologically savvy twenty-first century. The demands for such a transition require educators and politicians at all levels to rethink the role of schooling and what it means to be educated in this country at this point in time. To provide guidance, the government set up a special task force, the Royal Education Council, to devise a curriculum and pedagogy that would equip young people with the skills to move into the future without forsaking their past. This ethnographic piece of research explores the challenges faced by teachers and principals in nine designated Beacon schools as they grapple within a historical context which views teachers as labourers, working under difficult conditions with minimal support. The work ends with the question of whether mass education might in fact move this country away from the traditional values that are perceived as making Bhutan special, if not unique. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.