FAQ
How many teachers has Bhutan lost to emigration?
Across 2020–2025, 5,516 teachers resigned while 3,619 were recruited — a net loss of 1,897, and the teaching force shrank about 10% in eighteen months to 9,484 by mid-2025. Resignations rose from 163 in 2020 to a record 1,193 in 2024, roughly ninety-nine a month. The losses concentrate where they hurt most: attrition near 12.5% in higher secondary and 15.8% among female teachers, so the national 15:1 pupil-teacher ratio conceals acute subject shortages, thirty-plus period weeks and multigrade classes. Notably, the 2023 civil-service pay revision gave teachers a 55–74% raise — the largest in the history of the civil service — and resignations hit their record the following year.
The sequence matters more than any single number. Bhutan tried the obvious remedy — pay — at unprecedented scale in 2023, and attrition then set a record. That is strong evidence the decision being made is not about the size of a Bhutanese salary but about what a salary buys, and in which currency.
Counter-measures since: allowances lifted from 35% to 50%, 86 STEM teachers recruited, 214 postgraduate-diploma deployments scheduled for July 2026, and the ending of the regular-contract teacher system — a reform some observers warn could worsen attrition.
The teacher losses are only half the contraction; the other half is the birth rate. Both are in The Classroom That Emptied Twice, with the year-by-year series in the resignation chart.