“To be honest, we spent some years shying away from the responsibility of presenting GNH in acceptable terms and translating it amply into practical actions by simply taking refuge in the vision, concept and the term itself.”
These were the words expressed by the Prime Minister Lyonchhen Jigmi Y Thinley as he inaugurated the workshop on Educating for Gross National Happiness, yesterday, which was attended by some 68 international participants and observers and more than 95 national participants.
Speaking to the gathering, the Prime Minister said that Bhutan has no choice but to demonstrate that we are worthy of the scrutiny to which we are subjected, by practising what we preach. And this can be done by no other way but by infusing the education system fully and properly with the humane and ecological principles and values of GNH.
Stating that what Bhutan is doing by holding this workshop, Lyonchhen said that whatever we are doing is unprecedented because no other country has ever attempted to transform its entire educational system along the lines we propose. He said that greed, materialism and consumerist fallacy have turned us into mindless economic animals and are destroying the planet. To reverse this trend, we need a change of consciousness and lifestyle, for which education is the key.
According to him, for the pillars of GNH and the GNH index, education has been identified as the glue that holds the whole enterprise together. He said true abiding happiness cannot exist while others suffer, and comes only from serving others as taught and practised by our great masters in Bhutan.
Focusing on the workshop, the Prime Minister said that the only measure of success in transforming our educational system is that the frame we create is truly indestructible and that it will thereby effectively withstand all challenges from an extraordinarily seductive and increasingly sophisticated, powerful and manipulative materialist and consumerist world.
He also expressed the hope that a year from now we will see concrete actions and benefits that would emerge from the workshop.
According to the education minister, for Gross National Happiness (GNH) to survive and flourish as the guiding development philosophy of the kingdom of Bhutan in generations to come, it was essential that its educational system be fully transformed to embody and reflect GNH values and principles.
The long term goal is to ensure that the Bhutanese youth grow up to care deeply about nature, to think and see reality clearly, to act wisely, so that they can be a beacon and model of wellbeing, sanity and balanced development in a troubled world facing extraordinary environmental and social changes.
By Dawa T Wangchuk (Thimphu)
