The Shift from Good Intentions to Actual Policy for Educating Girls in Bhutan

This essay discusses the gender equality policies for the empowerment of young women in Bhutan that arise through education. It explores the challenges and responses against these policies, as well as the context of policy changes and the process of advocating changes. The essay emphasizes the importance of investing in education for the empowerment of women in Bhutan.

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“No Girl Left Behind”: The Shift from Good Intentions to Actual Policy for Educating Girls in
Bhutan
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

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Introduction
In Bhutan recent rapid development has caused education about the outside world, and
this has led to a decrease in gender bias. This essay discusses the gender equality policies for the
empowerment of young women in Bhutan that arise through education. It is evident that
planning commission of Royal Government of Bhutan and The Gross National Happiness
Commission (GNHC) need to continue their role in initiating and managing actions based on
gender equality issues by interacting with each other, and the broader community of Bhutan
(World Bank, 2018).
Description of the policy challenge
Empowerment of young women enables them to attain maximum capacity hence
improving their political as well as social investments. It empowers the community to rip the
benefits of women's abilities. The empowerment of women has significant benefits for the rest of
the family units. Women who are engaged by the policy end up having fewer children with a
higher survival rate (Rosenzweig and Schultz, 1982; Dyson and Moore, 1983). The policy helps
to develop a group of youngsters that are better sustained and knowledgeable (Lundberg, Pollak
and Wales, 1997; Kanbur and Haddad, 1994). All the educated ladies become an asset to kids
(Thomas, 1990; Handa, 1996). Therefore, the empowerment program engages young women in
Bhutan by increasing their decision-making abilities and gives them access to credit.
Gender equality policy has helped Bhutan to enhance the women development
economically and financially. This policy is analyzed to learn how education can be used to
empower young women in Bhutan. There are challenges to the use of the Sexual Orientation
approach to establish manageable powers of young women empowerment. In Bhutan, the net
primary enrolment percentage in education is higher for girls as compared to boys. Girls record

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an enrollment of 98.8 percent while boys attending 97 percent in the year 2016 (World Bank,
2018). Nonetheless, there is the lower enrollment of girls in the University and tertiary
institutions despite higher enrolment rate at the secondary level.
The other challenge is gender gaps in the labor markets with low-quality jobs left for
women. It seems the policy has failed to provide better jobs for young women since they are still
facing the issue of low-level jobs. This has to be mitigated to empower women with equal
opportunity. Despite the advanced progress around 58% Bhutanese women are jobless with close
to 60 percent of the general population below the age of 25 years (JICA, 2018). With the
majority of the population being young the empowerment of women could be a positive force
towards contributing continuous economic development. In the labor force, the challenges faced
by women are childcare and household responsibilities. The employers are using these factors as
a reason for upscale gender disparity in employment choices. In addition, Bhutanese women lack
higher levels of education which forces them to be employed in low-quality jobs. Therefore, the
National Commission for Women and Children (NCWC) was implemented with the main
purpose of empowering as well as promoting the rights of children and woman in this country
(World Bank, 2018). Through observing the consequences of this country, it can be stated that
challenges of gender equality can possess by observing the position of woman in this country.
Responses against policies
Education for Women
Women empowerment and gender equality are among the fundamental dimensions of
economic development. Therefore to increase women empowerment in Bhutan, it is imperative
to invest in the educational sector, and the health of women and girls which can be important in
the development of the families, communities and the nation. In this case, education will provide
the opportunity for better employment for women. Bhutan has ranked 110 within the gender

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inequality index that indicates major disparities between male and female accomplishments in
the economy, policy, health, and education of the country (World Bank, 2018).
Elimination of Gender gaps in the Work Force
There is a wider gender gap in the workforce because of wage and income inequality.
Bhutan follows a gender-neutral approach within its rules, policies, and legislation. Despite
having remarkable achievements on policy, plan front and legal evidence can be approached to
minimize the gender gaps in employment, governance, and violence against woman. The
participation of women in policy development, leadership and governance are low (GNHC,
2018). It can be envisaged that Gender Equality Policy helps in providing strategic and holistic
guidance in initiating, planning, accounting and implementing gender initiatives programs in
Bhutan. Young women empowerment policy strategically institutionalizes an effective policy
framework towards promoting gender equality within this country. The policy will need to have
major governance resource allocation, through which it is possible to develop the socio-
economic and sustainable policy outcomes in young woman empowerment (JICA, 2018). For
instance, the advanced intention of the gender equality policy leads to women, who are the most
vulnerable in society, will provide a major contribution in reducing the entire goals of poverty
reduction and thus can contribute towards education and employment.
Context of policy changes
To integrate the young women empowerment, the Royal Government of Bhutan has
established the National Women’s Association of Bhutan (NWAB) that establishes differences in
Bhutanese women in an advanced way. It is essential for the government to develop young
woman empowerment entities in an effective way (Youth Policy, 2014; Kanbur and Haddad,
1994). The context of young women empowerment policies creates a benchmark for generating

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the validate situation in the gender equality policy of Bhutan. The Royal Government of Bhutan
establishes the National Commission for Woman and Children (NCWC) in 2004. This
commission coordinates, monitors, and creates effective awareness on specific matters pertaining
to the policy of gender equality in Bhutan. NCWC upgrades their responsibilities under the
observation of the governing body of the royal government of Bhutan (jica.go.jp, 2018). To
achieve the target mission and vision of the commission, a specific milestone has to be set to
encourage young women empowerment concerning gender equality with proper enactment of
parliamentary acts (Verma & Ura, 2018). Through driving focus within the crosscutting nature of
the gender issues, implementation challenge and gaps become main accountability as well as
ownership of gender equality programs. Existing policies of Bhutan have “a minimal reference
to gender issues," where the NCWC of Bhutan is based on the cabinet directives conducts
(UNDP, 2018).
The demerits of capacities, as well as commitments within the mainstream policy
implementation that has been incorporated through perspectives of gender equality, are needed to
be managed through detailed records at meetings of Gender Focal Points Meeting and different
Commission Meetings (GNHC, 2018). It should be noted that relevant autonomous agencies and
government ministries including law enforcement agencies, local governments, civil society
organizations, and Gender Focal persons consult during the overall policy formulation within the
Bhutan region (Syed, & Ali, 2019). Through understanding the necessities of policymakers
towards developing the comprehensive gender policy for young women empowerment, it is
possible to adopt a comprehensive view against gender equality policy.
Usage of languages in policy changes

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The tendency towards depicting gender relations as unchangeable and unchanging can be
considered as a major challenge in integrating the woman empowerment in Bhutan. In this
regard, towards leading the consequences of young woman empowerment in Bhutan, the gender
equality policy of Bhutan needs to be looked at once again. This will possibly help to get into the
progress of the constitution of policy changes. Moreover, it can also be found as a more effective
approach, underlying the continuous progress of the policy changes in Bhutan. Through
enhancing the view in government officials and gender equality, it is easier to manage the
influential models within the Bhutanese communities (ADB, 2018). In this developing country,
Bhutan, women face major challenges in terms of equal participation in Bhutan society. In this
regard more opportunities must be provided to the young women to get into schooling, with the
policy of 'No girl child should be left behind.' It can help in speeding up the progress for ending
poverty, which provides major changes to achieve sustainable potentiality in young women
empowerment. Promote education, training and professional development programs for young
women to face future challenges. Moreover, to eliminate the significant barriers of equal
participation in this country, it becomes essential to uncover the surprising and obvious
possibilities of certain languages (Dayaram & Liu, 2016). Through continuing this process, it is
easier to drive the progressive changes in young women empowerment in Bhutan.
Process of advocating changes
Within the realms of decision making in young women empowerment, effective traits of
policy changes that are related to gender equality are more advanced. In fact, within continuous
development of the country despite retrieving focus on young women empowerment, it is not
possible to attend strong practices within the overall settings of the country. It is important to
resist the current concepts governing our laws and policies to drive the relationship between men

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as well as women in the society of Bhutan (Chuki & Turner, 2017). It has to be noted that the
socioeconomic factors of dominance can be considered to be a significant barrier of
empowerment of young women. All the socioeconomic factors need to be viewed in terms of
adopting equitable gender policy which takes care of young women in Bhutan. With proper
policy cycle, it can be easier to develop ideas of gender equality that are focused toward the
empowerment of young women (Pommaret, 2015). Therefore, the government and other local
policy, as well as legislation developers, have the chance to advocate given changes in the
policies.
Conclusion
It can be concluding that to develop the progressive entities of empowerment of young
women, policy development is an essential aspect. In Bhutan 50 percent of the population are
women. Therefore, women must be nurtured, respected and supported in all aspects of life. For
the nation to develop the mentality must be changed and focus on the empowerment of women.
In the study, the development of empowerment policies needs to be considered as an effective
indicator of sustainable development in Bhutan. It can be seen that the policies need to be
managed to create awareness on the specific matters concerning the empowerment of women. It
is compulsory to represent the mission as well as the vision of governments before the people of
Bhutanese with investing in education for upgrading continuous progress of Bhutan in the
international market.

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Reference List
Books
Dayaram, K., & Liu, Y. (2016). Women's work motivation and the influence on human capital
development in Bhutan. In Human Development and Capacity Building: Asia Pacific
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Kanbur, R., and L. Haddad. 1994. “Are better o households more equal or less equal?”ff Oxford
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Thomas, D. (1990). Intra-Household Resource Allocation: An Inferential Approach.
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Journals
Chuki, S., & Turner, M. (2017). Women and politics in democratic transitions: the case of
Bhutan. Contemporary South Asia, 25(2), 136-152.
Pommaret, F. (2015).Empowering Religious Women Practitioners in Contemporary
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Syed, J., & Ali, F. (2019). A relational perspective on gender equality and
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gender-equality-diagnostic-bhutan.pdf

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Gross National Happiness Commissioner. (2018).Gender Equality Policy. Retrieved from
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