Sangay Wangchuk

Purpose:
With the transition of political, economic, and social scenario in Bhutan, the civil society organizations (CSOs) have been expanding over the years. However, a paucity of trained social workers in Bhutan has compelled the CSOs to recruit employees with varying degrees. Considering such situation, this study was designed to understand the efficacy of Bhutan’s first-ever certificate course in social work offered by Samtse College of Education from the vantage point of the participants.

Method:
It adopted a convergent parallel mixed-method design, primarily employing questionnaires and semistructured individual interviews.

Results:
The study found the certificate course to be highly effective in enhancing the professional competence of the social workers in Bhutan.

Discussion:
The study supports the need to provide similar courses to hundreds of untrained social workers in Bhutan who are aspiring to upgrade their professional competence.

Microteaching, an efficient teacher training technique, provides teachers with an opportunity to enhance their teaching competencies. This study explored the effects of microteaching on the teaching skills of the pre-service teachers at a college of education in Bhutan. The study pursued a mixed mode of research methodology adopting a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design. A sample of 64 Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) second year students were selected to participate by clustered random sampling. The students received microteaching guidance from a team of four tutors including the researcher. The data sources included teaching skills assessment, assessment of the analysis report, and students' reflective journal. After performing satisfactory validity and reliability checks, the quantitative data assembled from pretests and posttests and reflective journals were analyzed and interpreted using t-test with p<0.05 level of significance, mean, standard deviation and descriptive statistics frequency. Qualitative data was analyzed based on the grounded theory of Strauss and Corbin (1998). Analysis from the teaching skills assessment analysis report and students' reflective journals revealed that microteaching not only improved the teaching skills of the pre-service teachers but also enhanced their confidence in general.