The purpose of this paper is to examine the actual circumstances of modern school education in Kingdom of Bhutan in the 1940s and 1950s, which is before the start of First Five Years Plan. This period is not particularly mentioned in the history of modern school education in Bhutan, and has been overlooked in helping to talk about education in Bhutan. In this paper the author divides schools founded at that time into two groups of “schools of Bhutanese” and “schools of Nepalese immigrant”, and attempts to clarify characteristics of the establishment form and language of instruction of each school.
 Aspects of establishment form reveal that schools of Nepalese immigrants which began to be established in the southern region since the late 1940s, opened as small private schools based on the needs of local residents. This assumes a spread of modern school education from below. On the other hand, Bhutanese schools, established all over the country from the beginning of the 1950s, opened as comparatively large-scale public schools under an initiative carryied out by local government officials at the behest of the king. This development assumes a spread of modern education from above.
 With regard to the language of instruction, it emerged that the schools of Nepalese immigrants had been invited teachers from India and Nepal, who adopted the language of instruction in Hindi and Nepalese. On the other hand, Bhutanese schools basically adopted Hindi as the language of instruction and implemented teaching by their own Bhutanese teachers who had experience studying abroad, without inviting teachers from other countries.
 As a result of the analysis above, it can be concluded that schools of Nepalese immigrantschools and Bhutanese schools are characterized by a stark contrasting. Such features characterize the entire modern school education in Bhutan in the 1940s and 1950s. The period prior to First Five Years Plan launched in 1961 and the full expansion of modern school education are the bases of school education detailed in this paper. The introduction of the modern school education system and the curriculum, and the adoption of English as the language of instruction were implemented in the 1960s. However these were not implemented suddenly, bue were done on the foundation of school education opened to the public from the late 1940s.

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