Making sense of suicides by school students in Bhutan: documenting a societal dialogue

This research uses a narrative inquiry approach to explore and stage a Bhutanese community dialogue on the recent troubling rise in suicides by school students. Forty-four individual interviews and seven group interviews were conducted. The voices of secondary school students, key policymakers, a parent, school principals, school guidance counsellors, and a Buddhist teacher represent the Bhutanese education community. A community dialogue on suicide is timely and illustrates that collective efforts can generate systemic changes

Ladies, gentlemen and guys: The gender politics of politeness

Are there ladies and gentlemen in the 21st century? Do we need them? In the 20th century, lady became particularly unpopular with second wave feminists, who preferred ‘woman’. Gentleman was seen as similarly politically incorrect: class, race and culture bound. Following previous research on the word lady, we explore here some current evocations and debates around these words. We consider how the more casual, etymologically gendered term ‘guy’ has been utilized for men and women, and how it functions to reflect and obscure gender. While the return of the lady might be considered a consumer fad, a neo-conservative post-feminist backlash, or nostalgia for an elite ‘polite society’, it also offers an opportunity for a deeper discussion about civility as part of a broader conversation that is gaining impetus in the Western world. Politeness is personal and political. Whilst evidence for a comeback of the gentleman is limited, we critically consider the re-emergence of the lady as reflecting a deeper desire for applied sexual and social ethics. Such gender ethics have global, social and cultural ramifications that we ought not to underestimate. The desire for a culture of civility is gaining momentum as we are increasingly confronted with the violent consequences of a culture without it

Aversive reaction between disulfiram and betel quid among inpatients with alcohol use disorder in Bhutan: A preliminary study

Betel Quid (BQ) is commonly used in the Asia-Pacific region. Disulfiram is prescribed for people with alcohol use disorders (PwAUDs) after the completion of detoxification as an alternative to rehabilitation. This prospective observational study reports the aversive reactions and common symptoms of Disulfiram and BQ in PwAUDs. Participants included PwAUDs admitted to the psychiatric ward at the Jigme Dorji Wangchuck National Referral Hospital for detoxification, who were on Disulfiram and using BQ at the same time. Aversive reactions between Disulfiram and BQ were observed for 100 patients over a year. Twenty participants showed aversive reactions between BQ and Disulfiram. Common symptoms included sweating, diarrhea, dizziness, tremors, palpitations, shortness of breath, nausea and vomiting, and headache. Since PwAUDs in Bhutan are inducted on Disulfiram after detoxification, and most use BQ simultaneously, this study will help inform health care providers to educate people about the aversive reactions of Disulfiram and BQ

Special Sensory Function Deficit among Patients with Post-COVID-19 Visiting a Tertiary Care Centre

Introduction: Several patients who recover from COVID-19 infection continue to have persistent symptoms even after recovery from the disease. The special sensory functions such as taste, smell and hearing are affected by COVID-19 infection even after recovery from the illness. The aim of the study was to find out the prevalence of special sensory deficits among patients with post-COVID-19 visiting a tertiary care centre. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among adult patients who recovered from COVID-19 visiting a tertiary care centre from 1 January 2022 to 31 December 2022. After obtaining ethical approval from the Research Ethics Board of Health, data on patients who were diagnosed with COVID-19 one year ago was obtained from the surveillance register from the Ministry of Health. They were contacted by phone call and invited to the centre to participate in the study. Appropriate clinical examination and tests were carried out to assess the special sensory deficits. A convenience sampling technique was used. The point estimate was calculated at a 95% Confidence Interval. Results: Among 271 patients, the prevalence of sensory function deficit was 39 (14.39%) (10.21-18.57, 95% Confidence Interval). Conclusions: The prevalence of special sensory deficits after recovery from COVID-19 infections was found to be similar to the findings of other studies

Counselling Placements Caught up in the Mismatch of Standards And Realities: Lessons From COVID-19

As the fear of mortality struck humanity, a new age dawned in the relational styles, processes, and interactions amongst people. COVID-19 has caused a major shift in the educational landscape. While most teaching and learning activities moved online, field placement units which are fully invested in industry engagement, and once highly sought, came to a dramatic pause. For students, this produced uncertainty around completion of their degrees and for institutions who became entangled in the changing requirements of accrediting bodies as they grappled with the changing landscape. Our final year counselling and psychotherapy students on placement were instructed to retreat from their placements while some ‘lucky few’ joined the drifting warriors working from the safety of their homes with their assigned agencies. Crisis and contemporary times call for openness and innovation grounded in practical wisdom. But the tyranny of COVID-19 times highlighted a growing gap between professional standards and community realities. This paper alludes to the struggles of counselling postgraduate University students on placement who are caught up in the mismatch between professional standards of accreditation bodies and the emerging community expectations and practices. It draws on literature to highlight the impact of historic controversial discourses involving online counselling and face-to-face counselling on current practices. This paper aims to reflect on lessons dispensed by COVID-19 to the professional bodies and universities in order to work together in creating innovative, non-placement work-integrated learning (WIL) practices that reflect the realities within the current landscape

Pioneering supervision training for school guidance counsellors in Bhutan: Reflections and lessons for the field

The ripples of the modern world and its troubles have deeply intruded the once ancient ways of the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan. School guidance and coun-selling programs were initiated by the Ministry of Education in Bhutan in the late 1990s to combat increasing rates of violence, family disintegration, crime and suicide among the youth. As counsellors continue to negotiate the complexity of their roles within a traditional education system, they are bewildered by battles of different sorts faced by the younger generation. Supervision was introduced in 2018 to bridge the practice and knowledge gap and support the professional prac-tice of the school guidance counsellors in Bhutan.The article aims to document and provide a reflective exploration of the trainers’ experience in developing and delivering the first supervision training for school guidance counsellors in Bhu-tan. These first-hand reflections further aim to highlight the rules of conceptual engagement across different cultures and the importance of exploring and recog-nizing cross-cultural dialogue. This reflective paper is born out of a collaborative initiative between Edith Cowan University from Western Australia and the Min-istry of Education in Bhutan. The article will be presented in a narrative format reflecting back and forth. It will include feedback and voices of the participants from the supervision training to illustrate aspects of experiences. Exploring ideas of supervision was meaningful and timely for Bhutan. However, cultural per-spectives in contextualising supervision rules and practices to suit the Bhutanese setting will strengthen this professional thread

Counselling placements caught up in the mismatch of standards and realities: Lessons from COVID-19

© 2020, University of Wollongong. All rights reserved. As the fear of mortality struck humanity, a new age dawned in the relational styles, processes, and interactions amongst people. COVID-19 has caused a major shift in the educational landscape. While most teaching and learning activities moved online, field placement units which are fully invested in industry engagement, and once highly sought, came to a dramatic pause. For students, this produced uncertainty around completion of their degrees and for institutions who became entangled in the changing requirements of accrediting bodies as they grappled with the changing landscape. Our final year counselling and psychotherapy students on placement were instructed to retreat from their placements while some ‘lucky few’ joined the drifting warriors working from the safety of their homes with their assigned agencies. Crisis and contemporary times call for openness and innovation grounded in practical wisdom. But the tyranny of COVID-19 times highlighted a growing gap between professional standards and community realities. This paper alludes to the struggles of counselling postgraduate University students on placement who are caught up in the mismatch between professional standards of accreditation bodies and the emerging community expectations and practices. It draws on literature to highlight the impact of historic controversial discourses involving online counselling and face-to-face counselling on current practices. This paper aims to reflect on lessons dispensed by COVID-19 to the professional bodies and universities in order to work together in creating innovative, non-placement work-integrated learning (WIL) practices that reflect the realities within the current landscape

Using Mathematics Modelling to Teach Mathematics Word Problems

The shift of curriculum from non-contextualized to contextualized mathematics has called schools to focus more on competency based items. The real world word problem has made teaching and learning mathematics more open and less predictable hindering the performances of students. Therefore, the intervention research was conducted with 51 students of class VI of Choekhorling Lower Secondary School, Sarpang, Bhutan to address the difficulties in solving word problems in mathematics. The mathematical modelling was used as an intervention for a period of 10 weeks to narrow the gap between mathematical and real world problems. The study concluded that comprehending the problem and translating real world problem to mathematical problem were the main causes of difficulties in solving competency based items by the participants. Moreover, there was mean difference in pre-intervention and post intervention scores (p<0.001) which indicated statistically significant to ascertain that mathematical modeling can help students’ mathematical leaning become more meaningful and teachers can obtain the patterns of students’ problem-solving competence

Gender impact assessment: theoretical challenges

The need for impact assessment practitioners to pay attention to gender in social impact assessment (SIA) is gaining traction in the literature. The importance of understanding the impact of projects on men and women is believed to offer projects the ‘social license’ to operate. Usually argued from a feminist perspective, incorporating gendered ideation into SIA procedures emanates from the gender and development framework. Given that 1) gender is experienced in context, 2) the situations of women in different parts of the world are not the same, and 3) gender can be non-binary, this paper cautions against ‘one-size-fits-all’ gender approaches in SIA. Drawing on a case study of a community-based rural development project in Ghana, we advocate for context-specific and particularised gender analysis of the impacts of projects, policies, events and phenomena

The Impacts of Mining on Livelihood and Development in Nyoenpaling Chiwog under Phuntshopelri Gewog, Samtse

<p><i><strong>Abstract</strong></i><strong>—</strong> <i>Mining plays a key role in facelifting the economic status of the people of its catchment area and nation particularly for developing countries, and Bhutan is no exception. In Bhutan mining provides employment and livelihood to a good number of people. Nyoenpaling Chiwog under Phuntshopelri Gewog, Samtse has been an important mining site for limestone, and dolomite since a few decades ago and will be hereafter too. However, the contribution of mining activity to livelihood and development is unclear today. So, there is a need for a thorough study on the impact of mining in Nyoenpaling Chiwog. The objective of this paper is to document the impact of mining in mining catchment areas. The data were collected from mining site localities through a mixed-method research approach. The study reveals that local people are not very positive about having mining sites in their area. There is an indication that local people are not benefiting as expected. The responses of residents suggest that adequate infrastructure development like a paved transport network, safe drinking water, bridge, and river embankment could ease their living in the area. Therefore, the study aims to explore the possibility of addressing these issues by concerned stakeholders. Addressing these issues can have a greater positive impact on the livelihood of people living here.</i></p&gt