Who is to blame for the poor results?
KP Sharma
The dismal performance in Accountancy and Business Mathematics in the Bhutan Higher Secondary Education Certificate (BHSEC) examinations has sparked widespread debate, following the results announced by the Bhutan Council for School Examination and Assessment.
The pass percentage for Accountancy was only 20.96 percent, making it the lowest-performing subject, while 30.55 percent passed Business Mathematics.
These results are a significant drop from previous years, with nearly 80 percent of students failing in Accountancy and around 70 percent in Business Mathematics.
Out of 2,505 students who sat for the Accountancy exam, only 525 passed, while in Business Mathematics, only 1,034 out of 3,385 students passed.
The question now is what caused such a large failure rate, despite the ministry often stating its efforts to support students, improve learning environments, and achieve better results each year.
Education Minister Yeezang De Thapa acknowledged the dip in the overall performance but cautioned against assigning blame solely to a single factor. While teacher shortages in some schools were identified as a potential contributor, Lyonpo said that this issue alone does not explain the widespread underperformance.
“Though the ministry has been recruiting qualified teachers, including expatriates, and implementing measures to enhance teaching quality, we cannot individually assess the competency of every teacher. This might explain why results vary between schools,” Lyonpo said.
Lyonpo added that frequent teacher transfers and changes in subject-specific assignments can disrupt students’ learning continuity.
Lyonpo also pointed out that school leadership plays a role, as some principals focus more on terminal classes, which contributes to better performance in certain schools.
Lyonpo said that since Business Mathematics is not a core subject, students might approach them less seriously, aiming only to secure passing marks due to preconceived attitudes.
The director of the Department of School Education (DSE), Tashi Namgyal, said that globally, performance in Mathematics and Science has been declining yearly. “In Bhutan, Mathematics is viewed as difficult due to abstract concepts and societal bias against the subject.”
He said that while the curriculum has improved progressively from the pre-primary level, long-standing attitudes toward these subjects remain challenging to overcome.
When asked about the impact of hiring expatriate teachers for STEM subjects, both the minister and the director said that since the initiative is only two years old, it is too early to assess its effectiveness.
“The presence of a small number of expatriate teachers in some schools alone cannot guarantee improved performance,” said the director.
Some teachers Kuensel talked to viewed the results as a reflection of their hard work while others credited the students’ efforts and sacrifices.
Many teachers said that prolonged teacher shortages have had a direct impact on student performance in these subjects.
In some schools, inexperienced or contract teachers had to fill in for key subject areas. Teachers from unrelated disciplines were also assigned to teach specialised subjects which may have further affected outcomes.
In some cases, teachers had to manage more than three levels of overcrowded classes, forcing them to juggle heavy workloads and limited time to focus on terminal classes.
During the paper evaluation process, some teachers raised concerns about these field challenges and urged evaluators to account for the constraints in their grading.
This post was originally published on here
