Graduation Address

"Address by Father William Mackey, S.J., Ceremony A." (26 May 1994). (UA Case 67, Box 3)

In case some of you are not familiar with Bhutan, it is a small independent mountainous kingdom in the Eastern Himalayas, north of Bangladesh, east of Nepal and having borders with India and Tibet. Canada has been involved in Bhutanese education for more that thirty years, first through myself, and then other Jesuits, and more recently through programs funded by the Canadian government. One of these is the project that brings Bhutanese education students to UNB.

Bhutan has always had education—monastic education. Clever young Buddhist monks went from Bhutan to Lhasa in Tibet for periods of 5 to 15 years. Besides studying scripture (the Kenjur and the Tenjur, the holy books of tantric Buddhism), they also picked up a good knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, astrology, and medicine. They returned to Bhutan and set up centres of monastic learning.

Besides the monks in the monasteries, there was the local village clergy – gomchens – who had a tremendous impact on village life including education. Most of these were ex-monks who found married life a little more interesting than that of the monastery. They conducted most of the religious activities of the village and taught bright young children to read the scriptures.

The Bhutanese monarchy, the present Wangchuck dynasty, began in the early part of this century. The first king, Ugyen Wangchuck, had a mobile court school where he trained promising young men for the running of the country. The second king, Jigme Wangchuck, established 9 or 10 Hindi-medium, one-teacher schools. The third king, Jigme Dorje Wangchuck, began the present modern English-medium schools. His son, the present king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, is continuing the work begun by his father and is very interested in all things educational.

I was called in to help in 1963. At that time there were about 15 to 20 elementary schools and I was asked to build up a system based on and adapted to the Bhutanese situation and needs. The government suggested that I begin in Eastern Bhutan, the more remote but more populated part of the country. When I started off for Eastern Bhutan, the development minister, Ashi Tashi, asked me what I was going to use for money as I traveled around looking for a site for the first high school. Money was not used in rural Bhutan. She suggested that I could pick up rice and lentils at the border as I entered Eastern Bhutan and that I carry 30 kilograms of salt, which would serve as money. I could trade it for local products as I moved around.

This was my first introduction to the reality of life in the interior of Bhutan. I learned the importance of adapting the Indian education system, which I was used to, to a Bhutanese setting.

I started the high school system at an existing elementary school while the first real high school was being built. The new school was called Sherubtse – "Peak of learning." It has now become Sherubtse College and grants degrees in Arts, Science and Commerce. Besides Sherubtse, we have at present: 92 community schools (mostly remote one-room schools) with 8,350 students; 143 primary schools with 42,139 students; 17 junior high schools with 8,138 students; 9 high schools with 3,511 students; 3 teacher training institutes and 2 technical schools with 1.524 students; plus monastic schools with some 10,000 students, for a total of more than 73,500 students, almost 10% of the population.

When I arrived, the social unit, or unit of community was the village. A village consisted of 10 to 12 houses and was separated from other villages—sometimes the next village was in the neighbouring valley, sometimes one or two days’ walk away. With little or no contact with other Bhutanese communities there was no sense of country, or even much sense of being "Bhutanese." Two things have changed this: education and the coming of roads.

Most students came from the small villages just described. That was all they knew. The idea of "country" had little or no meaning. When a United Nations team visited Sherubtse back in the early 1970s the team leader wanted to know if the Bhutanese were patriotic. I said, "No."

When he got into Sherubtse’s grade 10 class, he asked the students how many of them were ready to die for their country. He got no answer to the question. He got angry and pointed his finger at a very intelligent student and asked him, "Are you ready to die for your country?"

The student, named Chumbula, stood up and said, "No. Who would want to die for a country?"

The man was shocked. I intervened and told him he was asking the wrong question. I suggested that he ask how many were ready to die for their king. All were ready to die for their king. The concept of country did not exist.

In 1963 roads were just starting to be built. I had to walk the last part of the way to my first school. As the roads got built, the bigger schools had students from villages all along the road. This made them conscious of a bigger social unit, the district, as opposed to just the village. The lateral road, across the length of the country, linked the East to the West and brought about the idea of country. Students at school changed from identifying themselves only with their home village to their home district and finally to the country. They came to identify themselves as citizens of Bhutan.

That tells you a little about the development of education in Bhutan. Now I’d like to say a few words to today’s graduates. Bhutan is mainly a Buddhist country and today is an important Buddhist feast—the Parnirvana of Lord Buddha. This marks the conversion of Buddha, his becoming divine, and his helping of all sentient beings.

There is a difference between the ways in which we Westerners and the Eastern Buddhists approach the reality of God. Westerners try to grasp the infinite reality of God with their minds. In the East, we experience that same reality and try to mirror some aspect of it in our daily lives.

The Bhutanese have the concept that the divine being is incomplete until it is mirrored by human beings. Sangye, or Buddha, brings each one of us into being because each one of us is unique and will be able to mirror some aspect of the divine that no one else is capable of doing. No other living thing, human, animal or plant, can glorify God as I can and do. The vastness, the super abundance of God’s being and reality that is mirrored through our human lives is man’s glory.

As you go your separate ways, I pray and hope that you, through your uniqueness, will influence your environment for the better. I pray that our world will be more humane and divine through your influence and impact.

I end with the Bhutanese salutation of "Tashi Delek," which has a double meaning: "May God be with you and may your happiness be complete."