January 24, 2010: Prime Minister Lyonchhen Jigmi Y. Thinley called on the Bhutanese educators to wield the torch of GNH values and create “enlightened” educational campuses that produce children who are ingrained with the values necessary to pursue and achieve happiness.

School Principals, Education Lecturers, and Dzongkhag Education Officers are attending the Educating for Gross National happiness workshop at Paro College of Education.

Delivering a keynote address at the workshop the PM exhorted the principals of educational institutes to use their “special capabilities” to be an inspiration and role model to students and make their schools a GNH community where values such as altruism, camaraderie, team spirit, faith, honour, dignity and allegiance are practiced.

 “I would go so far as to say that no one else in the country is as well and uniquely positioned to fulfil that noble aspiration as the people in this very room. You truly hold the golden key in your hands. I cannot honestly say that to any other audience in this land,” said the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister in response to the recent criticism made to education sector, said, there are some sceptics who think that the transfusion and infusion of Gross National Happiness in schools are impractical. Criticisms on teachers are unfair and untruthful, he added.

He allayed concerns expressed in some quarters that GNH in schools would overburden the students by pointing out that the attempt was not to introduce separate subjects but to create a conscious framework within which teachers can infuse, transfer and promote GNH.

 “GNH is simple,” he said. “It is all about promoting and living with basic human values in a harmonious and sustainable manner.”

Recently, Lyonchhen said that Bhutanese spent some years shying away from the responsibility of presenting GNH in acceptable terms and translating it amply into practical action by simply taking refuge in vision, concept, and the term itself.  

If GNH is only on paper, it will disappear in thin air after sometime. Theory and practice are at variance, he added.

On powerful forces that threaten our own survival, Lyonchhen said “our little country, — once so blissfully isolated in a remote corner of the Himalayas, seemingly protected by high mountain peaks, wisely and peacefully governed by a lineage of great enlightened monarchs, — is now buffeted by powerful forces we could not have imagined or conceived just a generation ago. Though some have brought benefit, those powerful forces are not always benign, and some of them threaten not only our profound heritage but even our lives and land”.

The Prime Minister earlier in Thimphu expressed his concern that modern educational systems that undermine values like honour, valour, loyalty, allegiance, and devotion may also scrimmage the basic fibre of good character, subtly denigrate ethics, and thereby serves to produce consumers driven by personal success and ambition.

“In GNH school, there must be justice”, said the Prime Minister.

On role of school principals, Lyonchhen said that schools needs to be seen as a part of a larger society, where the Principals must ensure 100% enrolment to achieve universal primary education by 2013. Teachers on the other hand should walk to the far flung rural areas to investigate the status of school going parents and help them if required and necessary.

Special attention must be given to poor children and orphans in GNH schools. Their needs must be identified and support provided. A teacher must, in fact, go beyond the superficial and try to understand every child. Likewise, every child’s health must be monitored and registered because parents – even the well to-do ones – have no time for their children.

“If we work together as a team — all our principals, teachers college lecturers, and district education officers, with the full support of the Ministry and Royal Government of Bhutan — I am confident that it will not be long before any citizen or any visitor, simply stepping onto the grounds of a school anywhere in the Kingdom of Bhutan, will immediately feel and experience Gross National Happiness in action,” said Lyonchhen.

Tandin Dorji, 17, from Motithang Higher Secondary School, Thimphu when asked how he can contribute in promoting the values of GNH as a student, promptly responded that Geography subject is all about earth and natural resources and tell parents to protect our pristine environment thereby contributing to the conservation of environment fulfilling one of the pillars of GNH.

Lunana Community Primary School Principal, Tenzin Thinley, when asked how he can inculcate the values of GNH in school as a principal, said that GNH language curriculum must be in the interest of students where human values like positive attitude, beliefs, and age old  culture be practiced by students.

Lyonchhen said we have already jumped into the animal world fighting each other to prevail, protect and survive. Earth is an ailing planet where it can take no more abuses- air polluted, water contaminated, fire hazardous, and earth degraded.

Kezang Yuden, a class XI student from Mothithang who is currently attending the workshop said that she will create the values of GNH through posters, speeches and then try to implement them into classroom.