Pm Wants Small Schools Kept Open

[george]

PM wants small schools kept open

BANGKOK: -- Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has voiced his support for the Education Ministry's policy not to close down but instead improve some 10,000 small schools nationwide and expand the dream school project to cover all tambons.

Mr Thaksin told yesterday's development workshop in Chiang Mai attended by about 500 school teachers and executives under the Education Ministry that his government would back the ministry in keeping open 10,000 small schools countrywide.

It would support them to improve themselves and modernise so that rural youngsters need not travel far from their communities to study.

The government's next step was to expand the dream school project, now being implemented in 921 districts at the district level only, to cover all tambons with the aim of improving the quality of schools in local communities, the prime minister said.

He added that he would also instruct the ministry to gather information about schools for poor and underprivileged children and students without citizenship status.

The government could then send anti-poverty caravans there, issue special identity cards for the students in two to three years and consider granting them Thai citizenship in the future.

Yesterday's workshop revealed that many schools for the poor and underprivileged had limited budgets to provide food, accommodation and facilities and many youngsters who were studying at them needed Thai citizenship.

The prime minister urged school executives and teachers at all levels not to conform to regulations too much but to opt for creative thinking to improve education for the ultimate benefit of their agencies and schools.

He also promised rewards for those teachers who performed well and showed creativity.

He asked the teachers to be relaxed in adjusting themselves to education reform by joining regular evaluation and self-assessment programmes and taking up on-line and distance learning.

Mr Thaksin said traditional training on a group-by-group basis could not make all the country's 700,000 teachers ready for education reform in time.

--Bangkok Post 2005-06-11