Good news for teachers in Bhutan – the government is doubling their pay
![Pencils and pencil shavings are seen on a desk at Watlington Primary School in Watlington, southern England December 14, 2011. On Thursday the Department of Education will publish primary school league tables. REUTERS/Eddie Keogh (BRITAIN - Tags: POLITICS EDUCATION) - LM1E7CE14WN01](https://assets.weforum.org/article/image/large_EgjJ8aY9V6hxk_5jSX19McXneMtdfqjQI2uI5bskWRs.jpg)
A sharp idea. Image: REUTERS/Eddie Keogh
![A hand holding a looking glass by a lake](/uplink.jpg)
Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale
Stay up to date:
Values
Happiness is important in the small Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. So much so that its government is doubling the pay of teachers with 10 years of experience, to both boost contentment and the country’s education system, according to AFP.
Medical staff will also receive a significant pay increase as part of a package of measures that will place teachers and doctors among the country’s highest paid civil servants.
The move was put forward by prime minister Lotay Tshering, a doctor and surgeon himself. The pay hikes attempt to deliver on election promises to reduce inequality and improve health and education for the country’s 750,000 population.
Experience counts
Bhutan’s teaching profession has suffered in recent years, with poor pay and conditions making it one of the least sought-after positions in the civil service. In 2018, more than 4% of teachers left their jobs, and most resigned voluntarily. Many of the more experienced or highly trained were replaced by less experienced teachers.
Similar staff attrition rates affected the country’s medical profession.
“As pledged, our focus is on according due motivation to the teachers, while also improving the quality of the profession, which in turn will benefit our education system”, Prime Minister Tshering said earlier this month.
Salary is just one aspect, he noted: “As part of our flagship programs, we are also targeting capacity building and career advancement for teachers.”
Measuring success
The move is an attempt to encourage new recruits and make it easier to retain experienced teachers in a country with a number of social problems, including corruption, rural poverty and high rates of youth unemployment.
Bhutan’s health minister, Lyonpo Dechen Wangmo, sees investment in quality teachers as a means of developing good students, who will have a positive future impact on the country. But success in this remote nation is viewed with different criteria than that used by many other countries.
Most countries measure their development in terms of Gross National Product (GNP) – the value of goods and services produced. In Bhutan, this has been replaced with a policy of Gross National Happiness (GNH), which values citizens’ happiness over economic performance.
The World Health Organization has warned depression will be the leading cause of the global disease burden by 2030. So happiness may be a more fitting indicator of a country’s success than economic progress.
Other countries are beginning to appreciate the value of encouraging happy citizens. Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, for example, has a Minister of State for Happiness and Wellbeing, and New Zealand’s 2019 budget includes a broader set of measures that put citizens’ wellbeing at the centre of policy-making.
The United Nations’ Human Development Index compares how factors like health, education and income impact people’s lives in different countries around the world. Although many of these factors are linked to happiness, the HDI definition also includes measures like life expectancy and economics.
Norway ranked highest on the UN's 2018 HDI, but Bhutan ranked just 134th out of 189 countries.
Don't miss any update on this topic
Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.
License and Republishing
World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
The Agenda Weekly
A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda
You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in our emails. For more details, review our privacy policy.
More on Education and SkillsSee all
Sagar Goel, Joerg Hildebrandt, Leila Hoteit and Sriramprasad Rangarajan
August 15, 2024
Phil Baty
August 5, 2024
Rebecca Geldard
July 31, 2024
Ahmed Mazhari
July 31, 2024
David Elliott
July 29, 2024
Jeff Maggioncalda
June 21, 2024