Beyond Global North Models: Centring Bhutan’s Home-Grown Place-Based Education

Place-based education has gained global recognition as an approach that connects learning to local ecological, cultural, and community contexts. In Bhutan, place-based education was introduced in 2008 with support from the Teton Science Schools. While these initiatives introduced pedagogical tools, they also reflect reliance on progressive education traditions inspired by Dewey and Global North frameworks. Such reliance risks overlooking Bhutan’s traditions of place-based learning embedded in agricultural rituals, Buddhist environmental ethics, spiritual ecology, oral traditions, and students’ encounters with nature. Drawing on an ethnographic case study conducted at a Bhutanese Middle Secondary School, this paper examines tensions between schooling and ecological knowledge through the lenses of the distinction between thin and thick knowledge, and between useful and really useful knowledge. The study draws on in-depth interviews with 12 teachers, 10 classroom observations, informal conversations with students over three months, and an analysis of relevant educational policy documents. This study, thus, develops an argument for a Bhutanised model of place-based education aimed at strengthening ongoing efforts to implement Education for Gross National Happiness.