Factors affecting the implementation of Green Schools in Bhutan

Abstract

The Green School for Green Bhutan programme was initiated by the Ministry of Education (MoE), Bhutan in 2010. This programme constitutes eight dimensions: environmental greenery, intellectual greenery, academic greenery, social greenery, cultural greenery, spiritual greenery, aesthetic greenery, and moral greenery. Since 2010, schools in Bhutan have implemented the Green School for Green Bhutan programme by initiating different activities for the eight dimensions. Although this programme has been implemented in the schools since 2010, in the absence of studies, nothing much is known about the factors affecting its implementation. The present study investigated the factors that affected the implementation of green school. Data for the study were gathered from 28 participants from six school in Samtse district, Bhutan using a semi-structured interview. NVivo was used for data management and analysis. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings from the study showed that the implementation of green school was affected by factors at three different levels: intrapersonal (knowledge, interest, confidence, commitment and self-efficacy), interpersonal (support from different stakeholders) and organizational levels (opportunity and/or lack of opportunity for professional growth, resources, academic focus, time constraint, workload, infrastructural facilities and change fatigue). Keywords: Green school, implementation, intrapersonal, interpersonal, organizational