Eclecticism in Bhutanese education system

   Conceiving education as an art of technocracy has made our past and current education and its system so mechanical that neither educationists nor learners in our country are able to realize their true potentiality.  Today, at this juncture, considering the fact that education is weighed in terms of morality and money; the approach to impart education to our current and future generations has become a tremendous challenge for some responsible and realized educators.

     Our education has been exposed to various experimentation; many foreigners brought many philosophies to actually better our education mechanism. But the question still lingers around, did it work in our Bhutanese setting?  Are these foreign education philosophies only the answer to our Bhutanese education system? What if we, Bhutanese work out our own way through? Can’t eclecticism be the answer? 

  Eclecticism is destined to be in our education system. It’s a boon to better our teachers and learners altogether; like the unique democratic form of government that we have today.  

       Eclecticism is the call, which we need to attend urgently. Then, what is this so called eclecticism? The (wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, n.d.). defines it as a conceptual approach that does not hold rigidly to a single paradigm or set of assumptions, but instead draws upon multiple theories, styles, or ideas to gain complementary insights into a subject, or applies different theories in particular cases.  So, how can Bhutanese educationist imbibe the method? Will it work out?  These are some of the questions that linger around.

       Mind you, in order to apply an eclectic method, one has to be well versed in all other methods and philosophies of education, and then only the teachers can afford to be eclectic in teaching. This new phenomenon can be the answer to our Bhutanese education service. Let us make teaching spontaneous and lively with the adoption of eclecticism in teaching.

       But, owing to the skepticism of some of our policy markers and educationists, we still exhibit teaching that is so rigid, technical and boring; and its pity to watch our teachers look alike a trained robots.  The flexibility in their lesson plan is a “taboo.”  And if you peep through their lesson plans, it’s more of product oriented rather than processes.  When the teacher plans his/her lesson plan, he/she plans the lesson in such a way that he/she in advance predicts the behavior or the response of the learners, which is totally absurd. What if the predicted responses can go wrong in the real class room situation? Then what does that teacher do?  Most often, the unpredictability of the immediate class situations too governs our teaching process, which means the teacher has to take account of their current mood and then think of his approach to teaching with his learners. So, the eclectic approach is in the forefront. When students are eclectic in nature so should be our teaching approach.

       Having an eclectic frame of curriculum do not guarantee that every teacher will adopt eclectic approach in teaching. The most heart breaking part is that some teachers they do adopt eclectic approach to their teaching but they hardly realize that they are actually using it. The term “eclectic” is hardly heard in the teaching arena, which clearly implies that it is discarded.  If that is the attitude of our educationists, then we fail to bring forth our local Socrates, Shakespeare, Albert Einstein and many more genius.

       Today, as time progresses, do the people; and their education needs too. Bit of perennialism, bit of recounstructionism, bit of essentialism, and bit of progressivism are what we have to integrate altogether which will lead to eclecticism.  Likewise, all the teaching strategies and methods ought to be richly used so that all sections of learners are catered in one sitting. 

       Lets us give a new face to our education service; and that immediate initiative should come especially from the policy markers and the educationists. Let us make our teaching more spontaneous rather than making it more methodical.

Note: This essay was part of assignment done in the college during the third year (2009) -Very young essay with subjective outlook.