The Bhutan Centre for Media and Democracy (BCMD), a civil society organisation, has found that many young people lack awareness of their rights and duties as citizens and they often feel excluded from decisions that affect them. To address this, the BCMD conducted a three-day training in Tsirang to equip school teachers with the tools to promote a democratic environment in schools. The training concluded yesterday.
28 teachers from nine schools in the district participated in the training. The trained teachers will now organise similar programmes in their schools by promoting inclusivity by involving student representatives in school decision-making processes.
“In the next one or two months, the same participants will undergo a community mapping training, which they will again further step down in their schools. So, once the students are equipped with democratic values and skills to do community mapping, students will identify issues in the community and they will also carry out initiatives to tackle issues in the community,” said Kencho Tshering, programme officer at Bhutan Centre for Media and Democracy.
The teachers who attended the training said it gave them insight into youth issues and the importance of youth involvement in finding solutions and participating in democracy.
“Attending the training has made me realise that our youth face many issues that need addressing. It is important to involve them in finding solutions wherever we can. The training also emphasised the significance of youth participation in democracy,” said Dorji Tshering, a teacher of Mendrelgang PS, Tsirang.
“The practices have been in place. However, the emphasis I think has been quite minimal. So, now with the session and being able to name them all, we are in a better position to train our student representatives of the democratic cultures, which can be practised at the individual level in the schools,” said Tenzin Pemo, a teacher at Damphu MSS, Tsirang.
“I believe that we cannot change the system but we can change the people who are living in the system. We can do this by orienting. As a teacher, I need to engage students in orientation programmes and also I can implement the important things that I have learnt,” said Karma Tshering, a teacher at Mendrelgang CS, Tsirang.
Thanks to funding from the Bhutan Foundation, the BCMD plans to conduct similar training in other districts over the next three years.
Pema Tshewang, Tsirang
Edited by Sonam Pem
