Today, the centre is manned by an assistant research officer, with two administrative support staff, besides working with the Paro college of education (PCE).

The director of PCE, Thukten Gyamtsho, said that the centre has not received a replacement for the researchers, who left to join other agencies, and also for the former director, present Lyonpo Thakur Singh Powdyel. He said that more and more people are aware of the importance of research, but the research centre needs capacity building. “Various academic researches do assist decision and policy makers,” he said.

However, Thukten Gyamtsho said that more research centres are being developed to form a strong research unit.

Besides the establishment of centres in the three colleges at Semtokha, Samtse and Kanglung, and CERD in Paro, the department was looking to establish a strong research unit with industrial linkages in all colleges and institutes. The director of the research and external relations department under the royal university of Bhutan, Phintsho Choeden, said that the ministry was also working with the royal civil service commission to appoint a dean of research and industrial linkages.

“CERD’s not a one man show,” she said, adding that CERD was part of the Paro college of education and its mandate was to initiate and develop academic research. “The centres, including CERD, would encourage more academic research and organise seminars and conferences to bring academic researchers together to present their work.”

College lecturers said that the trend to do academic research was developing. “Academic research is definitely a new area in the country but most of us realise that teaching and research should go hand in hand,” said a lecturer.

Another lecturer said that there were many areas in the education system, that demanded a proper research study, but these research centres must be active to facilitate research.