Some Important Questions For 2012

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CHALK TALK

Some important questions for 2012

Priyakorn Pusawiro

When one starts researching something, one starts formulating the question to answer the problem and explore the possibilities to solve that problem.

To find the right solution, asking the right question is the first step. This is true in educational research, too.

As a researcher, I have learned how to ask the right questions and think genuinely what are the right questions to ask for the problem statement?

By recapping what I have been writing in this Chalk Talk column for years and what educational information I have accessed, I am provoked to question the direction and vision of Thai educational improvement.

Are we on the right track? Have we formed the right policies and headed towards the right reform? Have we ever set out the right questions in order to solve our chronic educational system problems?

During the past week, I asked friends and colleagues about their questions related to Thai education. I would like to share some of the interesting questions with you here:

-What is the problem with Thailand's education system?

-Have we diagnosed the correct set of problems and identified solutions for it?

-Are we on track in achieving our educational goals and how are we going to monitor the progress?

-Will PC tablets supplement the learning process?

-Have we ever seen the big picture of educational development?

-Have we ever defined the exact mission to achieve reading and quantitative literacy?

-What is the current performance of our students and teachers?

-Do we agree that the basic performance for all students should be literacy and numeracy?

-What aspect should we assess of our students and how to do so for each testing?

-Do we strongly assert that teacher education is very important in educational reform?

-What is the impact and quality of different types of teacher education systems and policies?

-Have we ever seriously promoted and improved teacher education?

-Do we accept that schoolmasters are the most important part of educational change?

-Do we try to know who are our students - their qualities, identities, performances, capacities and wishes for the future - before we target career-based education?

-What kind of research should be prioritised to meet educational development and improvement?

-What is the right learning methodology for all or do we need to customise or personalise it for each group of students?

-Should we use a one-solution-fits-all approach for our education or should we break down the problems and fix them one by one?

-What is a set of problem solutions and what should be the right procedure to solve our chronic educational dilemma?

-Do we really know what we need to achieve first in educational reform before talking about the quality of education at the end?

-Do schools nationwide understand "a-must-thing and step-to-reform"?

-What is a school system and what is an educational system?

-What is whole system reform and its criteria?

-What should be the right curriculum for all or do we need a customised curriculum?

-What kinds of curricula or subject matters should we design to improve education at schools, vocational schools and higher education institutions?

-Do we actually understand the learning perspectives of our nation and ourselves before we look ahead to understand the world?

-Do we surely know what we lack in educational basics?

-Do we definitely need educational reform or a revolution instead?

-Who are the real education experts in Thailand?

Frankly, I do not know exactly if these are right, wrong or apt questions for the educational system. Yet, I would like to stimulate thinking about what kind of questions we should ask to formulate the hypothesis of such educational problems.

Importantly, if we had set out the right questions, we would have been better at solving our chronic problems in education. It would save our time to enact reform.

Whoever you are - minister, teacher, educator, reformer, policy-maker, government adviser, politician, parent, student, businessman, engineer, journalist or whatever - I would like to persuade you to frame the right question for Thai education, then think it aloud or post it to us.

Those questions should be valuable for the government to tackle out-of-step educational reform. Also, we may uncover the right questions to unravel the chronic problem of Thai education.

Maybe, it's time for a national agenda for "Educational Questions". Let's think outside the box!

PRIYAKORN PUSAWIRO

Learning scientist, Computer Engineering Department

King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi

-- The Nation 2011-12-26

[IMA_FARANG]

What a can of worms to open!

You re going to get good well-reasoned and well-thought out answers from some readers.....but, unfortunatley other answers not so well-thought out from other readers.

Let me just give you my answer to your first question:

-What is the problem with Thailand's education system?

My answer is:

The education system in Thailand...at least at the lower levels...is designed to produce students trained to merely learn answers and re-gurgitate those answers on "tests". Because of that, students only learn the correct and approved "answers" in class. They are not taught to understand those aproved answers and any originality and innovation outside of those "correct" answers is frowned upon.

Such a system of education may have worked some years ago to educate a society of workers for the factories owned by their bosses for Thailand...but in today's technological based society as it is rapidly developing in Thailand....that old system is now failing the Thai people.

In that new tecnology based society, what is needed is graduates who do not merely know the "correct" answer....but who can, more importantly, use those answers innovatively and use their knowledge to find new solutions based on that knowledge.

In short, Thailand needs graduates who can produce practical real-world results from their knowledge, not just re-gurgitate the approved answers.

To get to this point, Thai students must learn to think and question those answers.

Teachers should teach students the skill of questioning those answers by asking questions such as these:

Yes we know that xxxxx happens, but WHY does xxxxx happen insted of yyyyyy?

Okay, that's a good explanation of zzzzz, but now can you justify and explain logically why your expalanation is correct?

Okay, that may be true...but explain to me in detail exactly how you would use that knowledge to do (some result).

Good teachers teach a results based knowledge, mediocere teachers teach an answer based knowledge.

You can't teach Chemistry merely from a Chemistry book, Biology isn't found in Biology books.

Teach Thai students to tink outside-the-box, to reason and innovate, and you will have the kind of graduates Thailand needs for the technology based future that is rapidly developing in Thailand.

Otherwise, Thailand will be left behind.

[ccarbaugh]

Education is the cultivation of the mind so that action is not self-centered.

[Phatcharanan]

Is there actually a point to the OP?