Equitable Education bill gets nod

[rooster59]

Equitable Education bill gets nod

By CHULARAT SAENGPASSA 
THE NATION

 

Move to create Fund seen as critical to reduce inequality in country

 

A KEY DRAFT law for reducing the country’s educational inequality has now sailed through the National Legislative Assembly (NLA).

 

The NLA yesterday approved the Equitable Education Fund Bill with overwhelming support. Of 188 legislators present, 184 voted for the bill while the rest abstained. 

 

Chalermchai Boonyaleepun, a member of both the NLA and the Independent Committee for Education Reform (ICER), said Thailand needed the Equitable Education Fund because it was now the world’s third in terms of educational and social inequality. 

 

“We need to reduce the inequality because we need quality citizens,” he said. 

 

He said investments in the country’s educational sector should not be seen as a budget burden because such investments would in fact help reduce the future state burden. 

 

According to Chalermchai, the fund will help children in poor families from birth to ensure their proper development in their pre-school years. The fund, moreover, will reach out to school dropouts as well as children with disabilities for the purpose of providing them with proper care and educational support. 

 

“If we don’t help them, they risk becoming unskilled workers or unemployed people,” he said. 

 

He pointed out that when people were well developed, they would be able to earn a living, pay taxes, and contribute to the country’s development. 

 

In Chalermchai’s opinion, the annual budget of Bt25 billion for the fund is not too high, given that it will help about 4.3 million people. 

 

Education Minister Teerakiat Jareonsettasin said further discussions would be held with the Budget Bureau regarding the fund’s budget. 

 

Teerakiat said the Budget Bureau still objects to allocating up to Bt25 billion yearly for the fund.

 

 

ICER member Kraiyos Patrawart, who is also an educational-economics expert at the Quality Education Foundation, said the Equitable Education Fund aims to close the educational gap within 10 years. He said the Bt25-billion yearly budget for five years would allow reduction in educational inequality. But he also said that they might get less than that figure, possibly Bt500 million or Bt1 billion, which would then affect the work to achieve the set goals.

 

“Middle- and high-class people have a small number of children while the country needs a large number of skilled workers whose parents were mostly poor and could not afford their education,” he said. “There are many poor children and the fund would help improve their educational and working skills so they could become quality manpower in the future.”

 

 

ICER member Prasarn Trairatvorakul said that Section 6 of the Equitable Education Fund Bill stipulates seven equality-promoting objectives as important and should not be cut when the lawmakers scrutinise details with an eye to effectiveness. As some NLA members had raised the issue of redundancy in the bill, Prasarn said measures such as setting up a teacher institute were just examples that could be adjusted.

 

He said the fund committee would have to consider what other existing agencies were already covering so they could eliminate redundancy but integrate cooperation among the public and private sectors and civil society.

 

Prasarn said there was also the need to conduct research to ensure the effectiveness of the government’s 43 measures to reduce educational inequality. The agency operating the fund would not be a big organisation but must have organisational knowledge or new mechanisms to propel work towards the set goals. 

 

He also proposed that the management budget should be at 5 per cent, so as to avoid impacts to other parts of the budget.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/national/30339554

 

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2018-02-24

 

 

[mikebell]

1 hour ago, rooster59 said:

We need to reduce the inequality because we need quality citizens

To join the police force.

[jaltsc]

"He said investments in the country’s educational sector should not be seen as a budget burden because such investments would in fact help reduce the future state burden." 

 

The real budget burden is wasting money on unqualified teachers in an archaic educational system. At best, :"equitable" means that every student will be offered a chance to be equally unqualified to perform in the modern world. 

Edited February 24, 2018 by jaltsc

[Cadbury]

14 minutes ago, rooster59 said:

Move to create Fund seen as critical to reduce inequality in country

The principle of what they are trying to do seems well intentioned and deserved. But again it seems the military's answer to everything is to throw big heaps of money at whatever the problem is. They just love creating idealistic "funds" with committees to distribute the money; a fair portion of course which would be distributed to themselves to live the high life while holding "meetings".

Much of the rest will disappear into the pockets of civil service administrators while some will just disappear completely in the usual fashion. What comes out the end for the children is anybody's guess.

In one breath Chalermchai says the  fund will have an annual budget of 25 billion baht and in another next breath Patrawart suggests that while budget is for 25 billion they might only get 1 billion or as little as 500 million. That is a huge variation and in itself raises serious questions as to whether they really have any idea what they are doing. This lot sound like nothing more than a bunch of starry-eyed academic dreamers.

 

[Get Real]

This is hillarious! They just can´t se the elefant because they created a gene manipulated giant mouse.

Just an example. I have my daugther in private school. She has a friend in class that are going to change school when moving up from Kindergarten 3 too first real class.
The classmates mother told me some days ago that the new school demand a test too be done to pass for enter the school and the class. Isn´t that crazy?

 

When I went to school, like 40 years ago, then we already at that time had national diagnostic tests at the end of every class. That was something that was accessable by all schools nationwide. Due to that all schools gave the same quality of teching or better. No more tests made up individually of every single school was nessecary. This is only one thing out of many, that they still have no clue about here 40 years later. 

Welcome to Thailnad 4.0! Life is wonderful.

Edited February 24, 2018 by Get Real

[Srikcir]

7 hours ago, rooster59 said:

“We need to reduce the inequality because we need quality citizens,”

"Inequality" is associated with wealth distribution.

"Quality citizen" should be associated with personal attributes.

Connecting the two signifies that wealth makes a quality citizen.

The sum of Thai society in one short sentence.

[quandow]

It doesn't matter HOW many laws are passed or how much money is thrown at this problem, until the elephant in the room is addressed it's all merely justification for people to polish their well-padded butts in their official chairs.  The "All Pass No Fail"" system in Thailand is destroying the educational system. By the time a student hits grade 4, they've figured out they will pass no matter what they learn, so they think "Screw it, I'll get the same results whether or not I try. I'm gonna take the easy way out and play games all day long. Teachaa [sic] can't do a thing to me!" I've worked at private Thai schools and international schools, the international schools take failures VERY seriously, they are not idle threats. THOSE kids get their selves in gear once they're identified as potential failures.