"......the Bangkok governor said.........he believes the core of scout training for children is primarily about discipline............"
Those sound like the words of a martinet.
This is what the founder said:
"Upon hearing the Scout motto, someone asked Scouting founder Robert Baden-Powell the inevitable follow-up question.
“Prepared for what?”
“Why, for any old thing,” he replied.
In 1907, Baden-Powell, an English soldier, devised the Scout motto: Be Prepared. He published it in Scouting for Boys in 1908. (Two years later, in 1910, the Boy Scouts of America was founded.)
In Scouting for Boys, Baden-Powell wrote that to Be Prepared means “you are always in a state of readiness in mind and body to do your duty.”
More than a century later, preparedness is still a cornerstone of Scouting. Through its fun, values-based program, Scouting prepares young people for life."
https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2017/05/08/be-prepared-scout-motto-origin/