His Majesty’s 38th, 40th and 41st sentences touched on the matter pertaining to the need for acquiring skills and inculcating a culture of life-long learning. Specifically, the following is how His Majesty put it:
Sentence 38th: We must inculcate in us a culture of life-long learning.
Sentence 40th: We need to be prepared for the future so that every one of us is equipped with the skills, competencies and experience to succeed and compete in the world.
Sentence 41st: We must give utmost priority to skill, up-skill, and re-skill our people to make them world-ready.
When attempting to embark on this subject, I was stumped! – I suffered a Writer’s Block for nearly 5 hours. This is such a weird subject – I did not know how to begin.
I mean the Bhutanese must be among the only people in the whole world who seek remuneration for getting skilled, or up-skilled, and re-skilled. Elsewhere in the world, one has to work very hard and pay good money to acquire skills and knowledge. The Bhutanese - whether you believe it or not - have to be paid good money to get educated, to receive life skills and to reskill them, to help them step up in life. If you don’t pay them TA/DA, they will not come and get educated or skilled.
I know that it will not come as a surprise to most when I say that when government departments conduct trainings – they make sure that the training happens outside their bases – because they want to earn TA/DA. Apparently there is a rule that says that they will not be entitled to TA/DA if the place of training or meeting is within the proximity of certain KMs from the locations of their offices.
Ofcourse if the training or meeting is outside the country – they will all jump at the opportunity. And why not? - they will get paid even more.
At what point in time in the history of our evolution did we acquire this culture of getting paid for becoming wise, competent, able, efficient and skilled? When and how did we get this way?
His Majesty is categorical that this brand of culture is not something that was passed down – He is certain beyond doubt that it is something that this generation has spawned it in the past 15 years. His Majesty’s exact words in his 95th and 96th sentences were:
Sentence 95th: I have witnessed the boldness, rigour, resolve and sternness that had defined the reign of His Majesty the Fourth King.
Sentence 96th: Unfortunately, these qualities have deteriorated over the last fifteen years of my reign.
Clearly His Majesty means that the process of our devolution began in recent times.
Well written. 👍
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