Shekhar Nath Shekhar Nath
As a teacher educator for several years, I have had the opportunity to observe, reflect, and analyse the evolution and progress made in the field of education in my own country and across the globe. The contributions made in the field of Science and Technology is immense and far reaching. However, the progress made in education holds several challenges, some of which are attainable and rest requiring wholistic approach to reduce and solve pressing issues. Over the years, with challenges facing the world, the need for shift in education is felt world wide and is not new in my own country. Although the need for shift is realised, it is far from reach due to gap in policies, political will, resource crunch, and community's will to accept the changes. I have been privileged to get opportunity to participate in the development of curriculum and text books beside teaching science subject in my country. Having to participate in such forum helped me navigate from conventional way of knowledge delivery to more wholistic approach towards learning and teaching. Having gone though the videos, I realise that the pedagogical approaches highlighted in the lecture are implemented in my setting. However, I argue that many of these methods fall short in realising the wider vision of Education for All. In particular, within the context of global citizenship and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Bhutanese educators need to transform and shift education towards issues grounded in societies. Education should address the local and international challenges as reflected in GCED to enable our children to understand local and global issues properly.
After having listened to the lectures, I realise that that are many more things we can do in order to bring changes in imparting quality education to our learners. In particular, I realise that, education is not just for the purpose of getting job, earning money and, getting rich. However, the lectures entail broader meaning of education such as, values, culture, tradition, religion, poverty, war, child labour, environment, and many more. I am confident that, given the platform and willingness, teachers can bring expected change even with minimum resources at their disposal.