ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This report is based on a large school survey funded by the Education Policy Development Fund (EPDF). The survey was carried out under the supervision of the World Bank and with the assistance of Cambridge Education Consultants, represented by Marion Young. The survey and report were prepared by Corinne Siaens and Sangeeta Goyal in the Human Development unit of the World Bank’s South Asia Region, under the guidance of Michelle Riboud, Education Sector Manager, and Alastair J. McKechnie, Country Director.

The constructive comments of the peer reviewers, Christel Vermeersch, Alberto Rodriguez, and Venkatesh Sundararaman significantly improved the report. Mark La Prairie helped invaluably by coordinating the research with RGoB's efforts on improving education quality. Julie-Anne Graitge, Gertrude Cooper and Savita Dhingra efficiently handled the processing of the survey and report.

The report team benefited greatly from collaborative work with the RGoB counterpart team. The RGoB team included representatives of the National Education Assessment Committee, the Education Review Committee, the Bhutan Board of Examinations, the Ministry of Education and the Education Secretary Sangay Zam during a workshop in October 2007 in Thimphu on preliminary findings of the report.

List Of Acronyms

B. Ed. Bachelor of Education

BLSS Bhutan Living Standard Survey

GER Gross Enrolment Rate

IRT Item Response Theory

MDG Millennium Development Goal

MoE Ministry of Education

NEA National Education Assessment

NER Net Enrolment Rate

OLS Ordinary Least Squares Regression

PP Pre-Primary

PTR Pupil Teacher Ratio

RGoB Royal Government of Bhutan

SBIP School Based Improvement Program

TCERT Teacher Certificate for Primary Education

VHW Village Health Worker