Most Thai Teachers Fail In Their Own Subjects

[yesdavy]

In many ways the discussion of whether the test is too difficult or the teachers too uneducated. The basic question is why would a Ministry devise a test for their staff that is basically can't be passed? If they did, then that is a reflection on how them and how out of touch they really are.

Teachers in Thailand are, by and large, not the best or brightest, but they are educators and many have gone to school in good faith. They don't stay in the field because of the great pay.

Many, many problems in the education system, I think.

Is this a joke?

[erpan]

There is no national curriculum from what I can gather. Worse, the teachers get to write their own course work.

My wife asked me to help her little sister with some home work. When I saw what her teacher had given her, I couldn't believe it.

This is a mid to high priced School in Bangkok. The English exercises made no sense at all.

When I laughed I seemed to offend.

The usual social rules. "Don't complain, its not polite"

The government could easily adopt a national curriculum from an English speaking country. Its not the teachers fault, in my opinion its the governing body.

The usual social rules. "Don't complain, its not polite" this means thailand is shit if you cant complaint there will be no bettering. So thailand will only fall. If you cannot talk about problem you can not remove the problem. Thai is then negative and they hide behind this rule not to complaint cause its not polite.

This is why thai people have no head of understanding, due to corrupt school and bad teacher .its like empty space up there.

Edited June 9, 2010 by erpan

[Hawk]

I think that this whole education issue has to be put into perspective.

1. There are simply not enough jobs around for highly educated people.

2. There are a lot of jobs going for people just happy to have a job and do manual labour, or be a salesgirl, waitress, secretary etc.

In actual fact you are correct, as too many educated people leads to those very people refusing to do the so called menial jobs, cleaners, gardeners, farm hands, factory workers etc, which in turn leads to mass Burmese, Cambodian migration rushing in to do those types of jobs. And the result is that many Thais are unemployed for years and in some cases never work.

So does Thailand really need a deluge of highly educated people when there is no work available for them in their chosen fields and never will be?

If all the students are over educated, then who will collect the garbage, clean the streets and work at 7/11 in the future?

[gosompoi]

You get what you pay for!

[yesdavy]

You farangs condemn out of ignorance.

As far back as the 1950s, Thailand had sound education plans. The best were sent abroad to study. Once highly qualified, these returnees were meant to be the teachers of a new generation of teachers. Alas, in the 1960s, the Asian economic boom began to take off. This highly-educated elite was attracted from low-paid education into big-money business & government - collapse of plans.

And it got worse. America & Europe recruited the brightest & best Thai graduates with salaries Thailand could not pay.

This country struggles under the weight of more powerful & wealthy regimes. Understand: don't join the ignorant & malevolent in jeering. OGT

America and Europe recruited the best and brightest? Is that who started all those Thai restaurants?

[KhunG]

blind leading the blind

It would be interesting to do the same exercise in other countries. I wonder how many would do any better?

Exactly! I once asked a colleague to ask for some advice from his wife, a Canadian English teacher, for my nephew who was having reading comprehension difficulties. She was kind enough to send me a two page, handwritten discussion of ideas, that was almost unreadable. Three to five misspellings per paragraph, horrible grammar and punctuation, and very poor penmanship. This is a Canadian born person of English descent born in an English speaking province and holding a degree in Education with an emphasis on English from a Canadian University.

I think that we should do the same exercise in every country as a condition of employment.

Edited June 9, 2010 by KhunG

[-jr-]

I wonder what kind of people you guys are hanging out with. Are you sure they were in a school at all?

In my generation (I was born in 1979), Thai map and southeast asia is taught in primary school, world geography in secondary school, Thai history in lower secondary, World history only if you're major in arts/literature in higher secondary school. So, no wonder they may not know who Hitler or George Washington are, but they should be familiar with Thai history if they were in school. Most people who finished secondary school have pretty good idea about where Thailand is on the map and can point at some big countries on the map correctly.

As far I know, our standard in mathematics is pretty good. Everybody who graduated from my faculty and took GRE got more than 740 (of 800) in Quantitative section, most of us got 780-800. Those in my faculty came from many schools, including public schools. In International Math Olympiad, Thai team usually got some medals every year. It was in 7th place last year.

We are weaker in English compared to Singapore or Philippines. The other subjects are just average.

I think it depends if the people you know had access to school, and if they did, how much attention they paid to their own education. Sure, some teachers are morons, but there are libraries and self-learning. I feel sorry for those who couldn't afford to be in school. But some were in school, but just wasting time there.

It's amazing how many people here can't wait to bash Thailand as a whole, just because they know some unintelligent ones, or surrounded only by those. If I use the same logic, that would be applicable to many other nations as well because I also know stupid people from various countries.

Note that for all those issues you mentioned, you can check on YouTube how well Americans on the street were doing. The title is "Americans are NOT stupid". I think it was done by an Australian channel as a joke, so they only show the dumbest ones. I'm sure not all Americans are like that.

Peace (we all need that, especially in Bangkok).

Edited June 9, 2010 by -jr-

[Sturbuc]

- Just think: if everybody would be well-educated - who's to pick up the rice for small money and bad working-conditions or

clean the rich men's houses? Maybe it's a system.

- As i thougt, AIL (algebraic input logic such as mutiplication before addition) is common,

my experience is different. Why shouldn't 2*3+2 not be the same as 2+3*2? (8)

But asking on a teachers meeting some years ago (and stated by my girlfriend); it might be different....

- many hours in the school are off or just used for playing. Much of the knowledge my girlfriend has gotten she took from the TV.

But away from LOS, my experiences at home show that it depends on the people like everywhere. And teaching is more a job for some people than a profession. At the other hand - if teachers were fired at the end of the (school-)year to save the money for the big vacation (2 month) - who do you think will work there on long site?.

Please don't mind about my spelling - English isn't my hobby

Edited June 9, 2010 by Sturbuc

[atyclb]

Is it not true that most smart students do not become teachers as the salaries are low? These words from a chula student.

Much of the thai education system does not teach analytical/critical thinking. How can many teachers teach this if they never learned themselves.

I believe learning and playing "chess" should be mandatory for all school children. It is a game, there are specific rules for each piece, and you learn how to organize your thoughts, think/plan ahead logically and systematically.

I have thai friends that bash their own education system all the time.

And yes, the united states has many educational problems that need to be fixed, but simply pointing them out will not solve thailands problems.

[johnandress]

I am not surprised about the result. The reason why those happened because...

1. the one who go for Teacher Traning University or study in Education degree because they have no idea what they are looking for or they don't have any talent or interested in anything since Education Degree in Thailand is super easy and operated for those who lack of knowledge especially Rajabhat University or even private university and some famous government universities.

2. Money means everything for them imean they can buy a degree from somewhere and start teaching or if you fail in the exam then you can give the approval a tea money.

3. The good, wise, clever ones will go for the good salary jobs not being a teacher because government pay a chicken feed money for teachers as we can see there are many tutoral schools every corner of Thailand but not for language school because mostly they employ unemployed, jerk and lack of teaching knowledge Farang to teach because they have a Kao San Road degree and can speak their own language.

[AskTheCPT]

All you people are severely overrating. I bet a very small percentage of college graduates would pass a test 5+ years later on the things they passed in college.

[CosmicSurfer]

Also see the article in Newsweek: The Destruction of Thailand's Global Brand - Newsweek

"Thailand's scores on the TOEFL exam, the test of English skills for students heading to university, now consistently rank amongthe lowest in Asia"

I predicted this when they changed the Test format years ago. I see that fact has caught up with my prediction.

The old version of the Test was Multiple choice which Thai's love as they can guess. And all their tests in school are also "Choice" so they feel comfortable.

But the new test Format for TOEFL is Internet based and requires you to Listen, Read and Process the information before you can figure out the correct answer to the question. There is no more Multiple Choice. And this processing language is more accurate in testing language comprehension and communication skills. It is also exactly where the Thai Education system Fails it's students.

Learning by Rote, Copying, Cheating, forcing a Teacher to pass the student, or Buying their way to a degree won't teach anyone to process information. So Thais are finally being judged for their lack of adequate learning skills.

CS

[yesdavy]

blind leading the blind

Its there way to keep the villagers in the dark

who in the Elite wants an educated populace??/ they might be able to figure out where they getting it LOL

A Thai owner's wife got very upset at the proposal to teach staff computer skills and empower them to make frontline decisions instead of running to management with every little question. Her position was, "If we do that we'd lose them to our competitors." Their company paid the lowest wages in the northeast and they had to maintain 30% excess employees to cover the monthly turnover rate of 30.

[ronz28]

So, the first place to start improving education in Thailand is mandatory continuing professional education for teachers who fail the test of say an hour a day or a few hours per week in their own subjects until they become competent in the subject matter they are teaching and can pass the test. Perhaps, a lesser level of mandatory continuing professional education for all in a variety of subjects.

[meelousee]

I think now the light is being shined on the "No Fail" darling schools most of the administrators teachers went to.

[NongMeaow]

:angry:Promote the incompetence.

I take it you mean "Promote the incompetents"

Incompetence= lacking in skills

Incompetents=those (i.e. the teachers) who are incompetent or who display incompetence.

Quite an easy mistake to make I suppose, they sound the very similar don't they? I blame your English teacher, or maybe you still mouthe the words when you write.

[NongMeaow]

All you people are severely overrating. I bet a very small percentage of college graduates would pass a test 5+ years later on the things they passed in college.

..."overrating"

...Sorry, you've lost me there old boy...care to explain.

[yesdavy]

What you have in education may spread to healthcare, since the education minister was "promoted" to the health minister slot a few months back.

[DickFarang]

- Just think: if everybody would be well-educated - who's to pick up the rice for small money and bad working-conditions or

clean the rich men's houses? Maybe it's a system.

- As i thougt, AIL (algebraic input logic such as mutiplication before addition) is common,

my experience is different. Why shouldn't 2*3+2 not be the same as 2+3*2? (8)

But asking on a teachers meeting some years ago (and stated by my girlfriend); it might be different....

- many hours in the school are off or just used for playing. Much of the knowledge my girlfriend has gotten she took from the TV.

But away from LOS, my experiences at home show that it depends on the people like everywhere. And teaching is more a job for some people than a profession. At the other hand - if teachers were fired at the end of the (school-)year to save the money for the big vacation (2 month) - who do you think will work there on long site?.

Please don't mind about my spelling - English isn't my hobby

What you call “mutiplication (sic) before addition” should be “multiplication has priority over addition”, in other words 2*3+2 = 2+3*2 = (2*3)+2 = 2+(3*2) = 8.

[DickFarang]

All you people are severely overrating. I bet a very small percentage of college graduates would pass a test 5+ years later on the things they passed in college.

After 40+ years I cannot agree more.

[phomsanuk]

One misstep was a failure of long-term thinking. During the good years, neither Abhisit’s Democrat Party nor Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai Party, which first took power in 2001, invested enough in overhauling an archaic education system, which emphasizes basic literacy and rote memorization. Thailand’s scores on the TOEFL exam, the test of English skills for students heading to university, now consistently rank among the lowest in Asia

[luilala59]

Not a problem for the Thailand teacher or education quality, the really problem is low salary job is to low quality person; high salary is to high quality person, this result can be applied on teacher.

how about pay high salary to those good quality teachers, giving them a house and car instead of corruption. then students they don't need to study abraod then foreign students they will come to study thailand

[shadiadi]

Aparently all you seem to need is a degree in Thailand to teach

More than 80% of Thais I ask don't know most of there times tables 6x6 7x7 8x8 etc I have had than permenantly etched in my brain since I was about 8

[SinghaJoe]

I taught in a Thai school before and witnessed a Thai teacher telling a class that they should not sleep under a tree at night because the tree will take all of their oxygen! :0)

LOL !

[Canuk]

The answer??? Hire Farang teachers!!

[Canuk]

All you people are severely overrating. I bet a very small percentage of college graduates would pass a test 5+ years later on the things they passed in college.

After 40+ years I cannot agree more.

Gimme a break! These teachers teach the material eveyday and are suppose to be able to answer questions from students. You must be joking? Right?

[Malacara]

These results don't surprise me at all. I recently came to Thailand to do some fieldwork for my PhD and I have been absolutely appalled by the incompetence of my Thai colleagues. The Dr I am in theory working with teaches first year Science at a northern university. This man is supposedly teaching the students about experimental design but he literally has no comprehension of basic maths concepts such as percentages or averages. Since I have been here I have been given a number of papers from him and other 'Doctors' to proofread before being submitted into journals. Not only was the English of these papers terrible (which I can understand; it is their second language after all) but the design of these experiments where fundamentally flawed. I have had to politely suggest to each person that they are going to have to start the experiment again from scratch. To make matters worse many of these 'experiments' took a number of years to complete and involved quite a bit of government funding! It's a disgusting waste of public funding in my opinion.

[blazes]

Read below

I didn't realise a fan of George Bernard Shaw would be able to get his punctuation wrong. It should of course be :

'Those who can, do; those who can't, teach.'

Someone once continued this famous saying of Shaw's by adding: "those who can't teach, teach teachers......those who can't teach teachers become educational administrators."

(New Statesman competition in the 1970s)

[Sturbuc]

I taught in a Thai school before and witnessed a Thai teacher telling a class that they should not sleep under a tree at night because the tree will take all of their oxygen! :0)

This tree might have been inside a room...

Edited June 9, 2010 by Sturbuc

[David006]

"Even teachers fail, so how can we raise the quality of students?" Education Minister Chinnaworn Boonyakiat was quoted as saying by the Bangkok Post newspaper.

So what is he going to do about it??

The English teachers from my experience with wife's kids have absolutely no bloody idea...attempting to decipher the questions from text books is a bloody challenge in itself.

The level of questions is far above the current working knowledge level of the students ..when they don't even understand basic I, thou, he, she, we, you, they!

I suspect the homework never gets marked since the teachers don't have the basic abilities and certainly unable to carry on any sort of English conversation..

.....very sad when you have many semi fluent self taught "tourist industry" people.