Aim: The main purpose of this study was to determine college students’ attitude towards reading against the backdrop of perceived poor habit of reading among Bhutanese students and evidences showing decline in attitude towards reading observed among students as they matured. Study Design: Descriptive survey. Place and Duration of the Study: Gedu College of Business Studies (GCBS), a constituent college under the Royal University of Bhutan, during the 2019 academic session. Methodology: The authors administered Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (ERAS) questionnaire to 500 freshmen. Results: A descriptive statistical analysis of questionnaires returned revealed a positive attitude towards reading. Specifically, from the two types of reading, the respondents preferred recreational reading slightly more than the academic reading. In addition, an independent-samples t-test revealed a statistically significant attitudinal differences between genders towards reading. In both cases, female-respondents were found more positive towards both recreational and academic reading than their male counterparts. Conclusion: Analysis of the data revealed that the freshmen of GCBS held positive attitude towards reading with slight preference being given to recreational reading. Also, from the two genders, independent-samples t-test showed that females were more positive towards reading than males.

Aims: To examine why professional teachers leave teaching and what measures the stakeholders could adopt to retain them. Study Design: A qualitative research design. Place and Duration of Study: It was conducted in Bhutan, and it took one year. Methodology: Data were collected from 15 former teachers through semi-structured interviews and written responses to open-ended questionnaires. Qualitative data were analyzed using directed content analysis technique. Findings: Analyses of the data revealed four findings. They are human, social, structural, and psychological capitals. However, as structural and psychological capitals were either the cause or the result of human and social capitals, the findings were subsumed into human and social capitals. Conclusions: This study examined reasons for teacher attrition from the perspective of former teachers. Based on the analyses of the data, two measures are suggested for teacher retention. These measures are renovating or building new physical structures and revamping leadership selection procedures.

This paper reports a survey of Bhutanese teachers’ Perception and Practices of Teaching Grammar in Higher Secondary Schools in Bhutan. The teaching of grammar in Bhutanese school is predominately guided by curriculum, whereby context-based teaching is mostly encouraged. The descriptive analysis based on quantitative findings of the study indicated that Bhutanese teachers generally believed that the formal study of grammar is essential to the eventual mastery of a foreign or second language.  The study also showed that grammar is generally believed to be best taught explicitly, inductively or deductively, but not implicitly. Moreover, the teachers' remark on the importance of systematic practice of grammatical features and detailed error correction suggests that there is a preference for more extensive treatment of grammatical issues.  The findings of the present study also indicate that, like the teachers reported in the 2002 and 2008 studies, teachers in Bhutan appreciate the centrality of grammar in their language teaching. This descriptive analysis based on quantitative findings would be beneficial to the curriculum developers, teachers, and lecturers in developing students’ grammar skills and providing professional development to teachers for effective delivery of grammar lessons

This study examined college students’ attitudes towards reading Dzongkha and the possible implications of the preferential choice of either English or Dzongkha as a language for reading may have on Bhutan. Using mixed-methods triangulation, the study examined college students’ attitudes toward reading Dzongkha. Data obtained from three data sources were merged and triangulated. Although the respondents showed a positive attitude towards reading Dzongkha, the majority of them, however, preferred English as a language for reading, which is deeply concerning for Bhutan. Based on the findings, the researchers have provided three recommendations, with the first being introducing additional but relevant Dzongkha modules for students pursuing higher degrees in English-medium colleges. Others include instituting mandatory DSTS test results for all opportunities and establishing Dzongkha medium preschools for preschoolers.

An educational institution is a home to thousands of inquisitive learners, and the quality of their learning, upbringing, and nurturance are predictive of our futures. To ensure that they are skillfully trained, progressively fostered, and compassionately nurtured, there are four pillars – leadership, workplace culture, physical structure and human resource – which are both foundational and indispensable to an institution. Only supportive interrelationship among these pillars can guarantee cognitive, emotional and behavioral progresses among or between learners, educators, administrators, and managers.