Poll points to urgent need to revisit method of hiring and training teachers

[OumarhindaOunsingha]

Is this article specifically aimed at foreign or Western teachers? Is it not all teachers in Thailand?

[sucit]

I would like to see a good study on if it even matters if you do good in school, as far as success goes. I am guessing it would not. 

 

Think about a bunch of soldiers who are studying tactics from books. You will have no idea who will be the best when you actually get into battle. Highly possible that the worst student is the best actually. 

 

School means nothing, bad teachers or good have much less effect on students than we think. School actually teaches us to conform and to follow, all things that are a detriment to the truly successful. 

[kickstart]

11 hours ago, rkidlad said:

Not long after I first moved here I had a Thai university lecturer ask me to proofread her dissertation for some doctoral study. Thinking it might be interesting to do I accepted. Dear Lord, was that a painful exercise. I had no idea what she was trying to convey. It's not because I didn't understand the subject, it was 'cos it literally made no sense. Just word salad. A mix of copying and pasting perfect English from a text with her own incoherent ramblings using poor English.

 

In the end I just made sure it was grammatically correct. It made no sense at all. She later text me to thank me and tell me she passed. Honestly, no one could have made sense of this dissertation. It has no place inside a university. It was the kind of thing you'd expect to see scratched on the walls inside a lunatic asylum. 

I had the same thing ,not long after I moved here ,I was asked proofread a dissertation for a Thai lecturer at our locale agriculture collage ,I think she was dong a master’s degree.

Like you it made no sense passages just copied from a book ,non of it her own work , a 12-year-old could have made a better job ,her speaking English was good, but she had no idea how to do this dissertation,

as far as I know she passed. 

[paulikens]

11 hours ago, connda said:

Which they will probably do.  They'll put foreign teachers under a microscope, create another layer of bureaucracy to create and implement more regulations for foreign teachers to follow, and then throw a few farangs and Filipinos against the wall every year to show the country they mean business. 
In the meanwhile committees will be formed, photos taken, puu yais promoted, and lip-service paid to upping the standards of Thai teachers while allowing the status quo to follow entropy's path of least resistance as teachers are sent to continuing education to learn new and improved rote learning techniques guaranteed to dull the senses and put students into the deep slumber of unquestioning conformity.  New regulations regarding punishment will be issued amounting to providing teachers with the guidance: "Be more discrete in the future and don't get caught and embarrass your betters or they'll be hell to pay."

Based on history and personal experience, I have high expectations that this problem will be, "ah-hem", taken care of.  ????

@connda that wouldn't surprise me in the least even thou it was a thai teacher that has started this debate. blame the foreigners even when it has nothing to do with them.  and foreigner teachers in thailand rarely if ever (as far as i know and from my own experience) resort to hitting a student. but its definitely not rare among thai teachers 

[Chongalulu]

1 hour ago, sucit said:

I would like to see a good study on if it even matters if you do good in school, as far as success goes. I am guessing it would not. 

 

Think about a bunch of soldiers who are studying tactics from books. You will have no idea who will be the best when you actually get into battle. Highly possible that the worst student is the best actually. 

 

School means nothing, bad teachers or good have much less effect on students than we think. School actually teaches us to conform and to follow, all things that are a detriment to the truly successful. 

I would say the poor reasoning in your own post disproves what you are trying to allude to. Take nearby Singapore which consistently tops the PISA educational tables in all categories and compare to Thailand which comes 13th from bottom (see my earlier post) . Now compare those two countries GDP per capita and the huge difference in the average technical /skill set and wage. Very many in Thailand earn only 300 baht per day . The very large tourist industry,which is largely low skilled has died because of the current situation,but the millions now unemployed have few transferable skills or education to equip them for more skilled jobs. With poor numeracy and literacy skills also there is no chance of that being remedied.

[Nout]

How much should a qualified EFL teacher charge a student for private tuitions

[djayz]

12 hours ago, connda said:

Which they will probably do.  They'll put foreign teachers under a microscope, create another layer of bureaucracy to create and implement more regulations for foreign teachers to follow, and then throw a few farangs and Filipinos against the wall every year to show the country they mean business. 
In the meanwhile committees will be formed, photos taken, puu yais promoted, and lip-service paid to upping the standards of Thai teachers while allowing the status quo to follow entropy's path of least resistance as teachers are sent to continuing education to learn new and improved rote learning techniques guaranteed to dull the senses and put students into the deep slumber of unquestioning conformity.  New regulations regarding punishment will be issued amounting to providing teachers with the guidance: "Be more discrete in the future and don't get caught and embarrass your betters or they'll be hell to pay."

Based on history and personal experience, I have high expectations that this problem will be, "ah-hem", taken care of.  ????

This, too, will come crashing down one day. 

[Classic Ray]

Education is a business here, not a service. If schools can hire teachers more cheaply, they will as it maximises profit, which to all schools and universities is their raison  d’etre and measure of success.

[Arthur Mullard]

16 hours ago, rkidlad said:

Not long after I first moved here I had a Thai university lecturer ask me to proofread her dissertation for some doctoral study. Thinking it might be interesting to do I accepted. Dear Lord, was that a painful exercise. I had no idea what she was trying to convey. It's not because I didn't understand the subject, it was 'cos it literally made no sense. Just word salad. A mix of copying and pasting perfect English from a text with her own incoherent ramblings using poor English.

 

In the end I just made sure it was grammatically correct. It made no sense at all. She later text me to thank me and tell me she passed. Honestly, no one could have made sense of this dissertation. It has no place inside a university. It was the kind of thing you'd expect to see scratched on the walls inside a lunatic asylum. 

Wow. That's astonishing.

[Arthur Mullard]

16 hours ago, rkidlad said:

Not long after I first moved here I had a Thai university lecturer ask me to proofread her dissertation for some doctoral study. Thinking it might be interesting to do I accepted. Dear Lord, was that a painful exercise. I had no idea what she was trying to convey. It's not because I didn't understand the subject, it was 'cos it literally made no sense. Just word salad. A mix of copying and pasting perfect English from a text with her own incoherent ramblings using poor English.

 

In the end I just made sure it was grammatically correct. It made no sense at all. She later text me to thank me and tell me she passed. Honestly, no one could have made sense of this dissertation. It has no place inside a university. It was the kind of thing you'd expect to see scratched on the walls inside a lunatic asylum. 

Astonishing as that sounds for the obvious reasons, one also wonders who were her English teachers way back whenever it was. While I'm no apologist for the system of nobody fails in Thailand, if she DID have foreign teachers during her education, they too did a deplorable job. Perhaps I'm not the only teacher who's shared a staffroom with perfectly talented colleagues... some of whom don't care too much. They may have their reasons of course. 

[thaibook]

Like in all spheres of life in Thailand, money is important.  Teachers pay to be hired and promoted.  They then naturally try to recoup their investment by buying promotion so as to control budgets or the hiring of other teachers.  To improve teaching in schools you need to reform the ministry of education and the teacher training colleges.  Who will want to be minister or work in a department where there is no scope for (self) wealth creation only for improving the country?

 

 

[Arthur Mullard]

6 hours ago, sucit said:

I would like to see a good study on if it even matters if you do good in school, as far as success goes. I am guessing it would not. 

 

Think about a bunch of soldiers who are studying tactics from books. You will have no idea who will be the best when you actually get into battle. Highly possible that the worst student is the best actually. 

 

School means nothing, bad teachers or good have much less effect on students than we think. School actually teaches us to conform and to follow, all things that are a detriment to the truly successful. 

Interesting argument. The lucky few surely are the ones with that maverick spirit that find real success. The comment about education you make may not consider those within the system, who can inspire individuality. There was a similar exchange in the BKK Post, Post Bag, when someone tried defending a critic - probably F Qui or similar - of the military junta's academic achievements. The defender based his argument also, on his observations in the military (elsewhere), and implied that running a country didn't require the best education. It got printed. Looking at the world leaders today it's not a given, either way. 

[kiwikeith]

23 hours ago, DavoTheGun said:

In my experience, 5 years in a Government College, most Teachers are incompetent, not interested in teaching, give them books or tasks to do, then leave them, come back a few minutes before finishing, or arranging some sort of "Activity" they will be having. just a joke.

Sorry to agree with you, Teachers in most public schools in NZ are ,I would say useless.

Children can not be punished physically, there is a anti smacking law and parents and teachers are not allowed to cane or strap anymore. Consequently, some Kids have beaten up teachers .

The other problem is the curriculum taught in public schools is stupid,they teach kids like kindergarten when they are 6/7/8 yrs old really stupid.

It makes me think, if you can not afford private school you would have to teach your kids yourself or put up with the brain dead system.

  

[FangFerang]

Perhaps a good first step would be to....stop making teachers buy their positions for 25,000 baht?  Sarcasm, of course, because No One buys a job in Thailand.....

[cjinchiangrai]

On 10/5/2020 at 10:35 AM, connda said:

How many doctoral candidates require an editor to edit their dissertation?  If that's the case, then the editor is more deserving of the title, "Doctor" than the candidate.

All of them, even in original language, candidates have readers and mentors to help edit the dissertations and thesis'. It helps organization and focus.

[cjinchiangrai]

9 hours ago, Arthur Mullard said:

Interesting argument. The lucky few surely are the ones with that maverick spirit that find real success. The comment about education you make may not consider those within the system, who can inspire individuality. There was a similar exchange in the BKK Post, Post Bag, when someone tried defending a critic - probably F Qui or similar - of the military junta's academic achievements. The defender based his argument also, on his observations in the military (elsewhere), and implied that running a country didn't require the best education. It got printed. Looking at the world leaders today it's not a given, either way. 

It all depends on what you are doing. I certainly expect my doctor to go to university. At the same time, plenty of kids get a lot of education to work factory jobs.

 

You could also look at the degrees and how they are career related. Degrees with job skills like Accounting, nursing, engineering Etc. provide skills that are required for the related job. General skills like business, history, languages, theoretically provide analysis skills but no clear job and no clear set of information that is unavailable to the general public. 

 

In the end some of it is ticking boxes and if you want the job you need to be able to tick the box. 

[holy cow cm]

On 10/5/2020 at 8:15 AM, rkidlad said:

Just word salad

Now that is funny. 

[holy cow cm]

18 hours ago, kickstart said:

I had the same thing ,not long after I moved here ,I was asked proofread a dissertation for a Thai lecturer at our locale agriculture collage ,I think she was dong a master’s degree.

Like you it made no sense passages just copied from a book ,non of it her own work , a 12-year-old could have made a better job ,her speaking English was good, but she had no idea how to do this dissertation,

as far as I know she passed. 

I too was asked by a teacher who was doing an online Masters to proof read. Cut and paste a nonsensical. But she did pass as it was more cut and paste than her own writing. 

[CrunchWrapSupreme]

On 10/5/2020 at 8:15 AM, rkidlad said:

It has no place inside a university. It was the kind of thing you'd expect to see scratched on the walls inside a lunatic asylum.

Can confirm. Here's a story for y'all.

 

A former colleague of mine once told me he was paid to edit one of these. Several pages of big fancy words with little meaning, vaguely related to education, evaluation, information, blah blah. Someone was obviously Googling, copying, and pasting.

 

I later met this "PhD", and soon found why these degrees are so lowly ranked and have little to no value out of the country.

 

It was at one of the local farang watering holes out in Issan. I was introduced to her. I found out she was a regular. She was rather provocatively dressed, boisterous, and had obviously "pre-gamed" at home before heading out for the evening. My soon to be wife was with me and a bit concerned, how do I know such a person? Perhaps I was a customer? Haha.

 

No I said, this is one of my coworker's friends, educated, former teacher, and now govt worker. She couldn't believe it. My wife's background was in hotels and restaurants where I had met her, and where she had much experience with such people. She said this "PhD" had all the exact mannerisms and demeanor of a BKK bar girl.

 

I guess between drinking and other business, she really hit those books, got that PhD, and moved up in the world. Good on her, I guess.