Teaching Allowance

Teaching profession isn't the choice for many of the youths in Bhutan despite the fact that most of the schools are in dire need of teachers. The teaching allowances introduced for the teaching professionals by the government has least served as an encouragement to most of the graduates to opt this profession as their career. This is because there is disparity in the allowances paid to the teachers. There is discrimination right at the entrance to the teaching profession. It's actually not the teaching allowances rather it's the seniority allowance. The teachers who are in the higher rungs already have higher pay scale based on their seniority and on top of that the allowances paid is also higher. On the other hand, the fresh teachers (between0-5years of service) are paid the lowest allowance.

The irony is that the fresh teachers are given the maximum responsibilities in schools like house masters/mistresses, club coordinators and so on. And while coming to the work load the senior teachers never take extra teaching work loads because they are paid higher allowance. In any case the senior teachers are not to be blamed as they weren't the one who decided the allowance. It would be better if the so called teaching allowance is paid in equal percentage to all the teachers irrespective of their years of service. Still then, those senior teachers would be earning higher allowance as their basic pay itself is higher. Or if not it has to be termed as the seniority allowance for teachers instead of simply Teaching Allowance.