Towards an Inclusive Education Policy for Sustainability: Advancing the ‘Educating for Gross National Happiness’ Initiative in Bhutan

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

on the third page, the section ‘Brief background on Gross National Happiness (GNH) and Educating for Gross National Happiness (EGNH) initiative in Bhutan’, the first two paragraphs would be better understood if there was a table or infographic with the correlation between the four pillars and the domains of use.

 

Page 5, Table 1. The studies used could be associated to each of the items in the table in order to have a well-defined and structured theoretical framework.

 

Page 11. Table 3. The hyphenated format is not the most effective. If you choose to separate by blank lines and reduce the font size, this will benefit the readability. The footer of this table contains errors (missing spaces after comma, semicolon after the second year instead of comma). 

 

Page 12. Figure 1. Increasing the size of the image to help readability of the central fields of the image.

 

The final bibliographical references are not numbered. They should be numbered for better location. 

Likewise, the final references appear in different formats (they do not follow APA 7 format). A thorough revision of the presentation format of the references is recommended for each and every one of them. Errors have been found where the year of publication appears at the beginning or at the end of the reference, absence of page numbers, absence of DOI in recent articles, unequal use of italics, etc. 

 

 

Author Response

Hi,

We have made changes to our manuscript as per your feedback. We would like to acknowledge and 'thank you' for your valuable contributions in enriching our paper. 

Kind regards 

Phuntsho Wangdi 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

 

It has been a pleasure to review the manuscript entitled “Towards an inclusive education policy for sustainability: Advancing the ‘Educating for Gross National Happiness’ initiative in Bhutan.” Although this is a very interesting topic, further improvements could be considered for publication. Especially in terms of organization and clarification of methodological aspects to bring rigor to the study. I hope my comments will be useful.

 

·      Introduction: Comprehensive, with recent and relevant quotations. It also presents the literature, including a review of how the topic has previously been approached and the need for its study.

·      Methodology: This section needs to be emphasized. It starts with the Materials and Methods heading, but needs to start with a general Methodology heading containing these materials and methods. Therefore, I would make a general summary of the methodology used and then proceed to clarify each of the processes developed (interviews, focus groups and documentary analysis). Furthermore, although the methodology is adequate, clarifications and more order are needed. It carries out both focus groups, interviews and then documentary analysis. You should clarify each of these aspects. In the case of the interviews, for example, how many people were interviewed, what were the interview blocks, what were the characteristics of the interviewees (beyond their profession). For the latter, a sample table might be useful. With the focus groups also, how many were there, who participated, what were the generative questions? Similarly, it is important to include how these interviews and/or focus groups were analyzed: thematic analysis? narrative? inductive? deductive? were software tools used? Also with the political analysis section, why were the cited documents analyzed and not others? In general, that is to say, not only to show the method in a general way, to improve the explanation of the research process (sample and instrument), but also the analysis process (especially in interviews and focus groups). In addition, another fundamental element would be to include several key sub-headings: ethical considerations of the study and limitations.

·      Findings/Results: Again, we need a large ‘Results’ section that encompasses the two sub-headings mentioned above. A section that includes a brief description of what we are going to find in the results and how they are going to be displayed. Otherwise, the order of the results in the large blocks that it makes seems to me to be correct and gives order.

·      Discussion: Although correct and complete. It lacks some discussion with the previous literature, even in relation to aspects mentioned in the introduction. It creates a sense of disconnection between Introduction and Discussion.

·      Implications: Finally, should have a standalone section emphasizing on implications of this study to practice and society.

·      Tables and figures: They are appropriate and very clear. They are easy to interpret and they support the arguments. However, I would introduce them in the text. E.g. … as you can see in Table 3.

·      References: Recent and in line with the subject matter addressed.

 

Finally, although it is a very interesting topic, major improvements may be considered for publication. I hope my comments will be helpful.

Author Response

Hi,

We have made the changes in our manuscript as per your comments. This is to deeply acknowledge for your valuable comments that enabled us to enrich our work. Your comments have not only helped us make our paper comprehensive but also strengthened the theoretical and methodological angles of our paper. 

Thank you and Kind regards 

Phuntsho Wangdi 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The content changes introduced bring quality and effectively complement the previous version. 

The only suggested proposals concern the layout of the images, as they are in locations that lend themselves to improvement:

- Image 1. It should be with alignment centred with respect to the body of the text (it is not now).

- Image 2. The text should not wrap around the image. The image should appear free of surrounding text.

Author Response

1. We have addressed the issue of alignment by reworking the image on Page 15.
2. We have addressed the issue by not wrapping the text around the image on Page 17. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

 

After reviewing the proposed changes I consider that the concerns raised in the review have been successfully addressed. Therefore, I consider that the article has improved from its original version. Congratulations.

 

Best regards.

Author Response

The comments in the earlier round were useful to improve the strength of the paper - theoretically and methodologically. We would like to thank the reviewer for their valuable feedback. 

Thank you for your insights! 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx