Thais Take Lead On Education In Asean Economic Community (AEC)

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Thais take lead on education in AEC

Chularat Saengpassa

Wannapa Khaopa

The Nation

Thailand plans more toplevel regional meetings on education late this year to help prepare Asean countries for their role in the upcoming Asean Economic Community (AEC).

The Kingdom will again host a meeting of the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organisation (Seameo) - and an Asean senior officials meeting on education - a top official of the Education Ministry told The Nation.

"Seameo has 19 regional centres [in Asean countries that have provided knowledge and training to its member states] but they have not adjusted [sufficiently] to prepare for the AEC," Sasithara Pichaichannarong, permanent secretary of the ministry, said in an exclusive interview with Nation Group publications on Friday.

Seameo has set regional education, science and cultural development in Asean countries and East Timor as its main mission, Sasithara said.

As a result, it should pay more attention to facilitating development in accordance with the AEC, she said. Each centre should focus not only on what it had done or what it was doing, but they should also coordinate and share with each other for more effective development.

"Asean would prefer to have its senior educational officials from member countries and high officials of Seameo meet more frequently, to cooperate more closely," said Sasithara. The purpose of such meetings would be to discuss collaboration, follow up on the progress of projects and activities, and review and adjust them where necessary.

Thailand hosted the last Seameo High Officials Meeting, Asean Senior Officials Meeting on Education and Asean+3 Senior Officials Meeting on Education last week in Bangkok.

"Thailand will host them again in November. We propose to hold them during Seameo's meeting on Wednesday and the meeting's delegates approved," Sasithara said. She added the meetings should be rotated between member countries.

"For more effective meetings, we will first invite Thai officials working for Seameo's 19 centres to discuss their plans, what they are doing, and what they need to achieve in their projects. Then we will invite officials at these centres to discuss and conclude the same issues before the meetings are organised. The preliminary preparation will be conducted more concisely, approving suitable projects or discussing how to help with their needs. There is no need to report in detail to Asean's top education officials - summaries of the projects are enough," she said.

Seameo has proposed a virtual university project as an information platform for students about its member countries' universities - but the plan's details are still not clear.

At the Asean senior officials meeting on education - the Asean University Network (AUN) will extend its Asean credit transfer system to more universities across Asean. This follows two years of trials, from 20112012, in AUN's 26 member universities, which allowed exchange students to transfer credits, and will allow analysis and system adjustment in 2013.

Sasithara said the meeting also discussed how to promote more student academic knowledge and student development activities. The Asean+3 Senior Officials Meeting on Education had planned to promote more student exchanges as well.

The meeting advised its delegates that China (one of the Asean+3 members) in collaboration with Thailand would hold the AseanChina Youth Caring and Sharing Programme this year to celebrate the 20th anniversary of dialogue between the two, and to promote greater understanding and friendship among the youth of Asean and China by strengthening peopletopeople links.

The programme will give senior secondary school students from those countries a chance to join educational tours and visits from Bangkok to Kunming in China's Yunnan province. They will also hold special lectures, discussions and workshops.

The meeting discussed how Asean should coordinate Asean and Chinese plans to exchange students with each other under the "Initiative of Double 100,000 Students Mobility".

"Education institutes and organisations in Thailand have many agreements with Asean countries for various projects, but they work separately. For example, the Teachers Council of Thailand [TCT] links with the teachers' councils of other Asean countries through the Asean Council of Teachers. Thai universities have their own agreements with other countries," Sasithara said.

She said the ministry would require them to share with it what they'd gathered from others in Asean to make the collaboration and exchanges broader and stronger.

She wanted the TCT to work with the Asean Council of Teachers to upgrade its teacher licensing standards by learning from agencies with the same missions in Asean.

-- The Nation 2012-01-23

[thunder30101]

Lead Asean to where should be the question, but I can guess, like everything else here the thais have waited until the last minute to do anything and now want to try and stall the process by any means possible until hopefully the problem is forgotten. This agreement was made in 2008 to be implemented in 2015 allowing the member countries ample time to upgrade their education systems especially languages, not one educator I have worked with in the last 3 years has had a clue about it when I have brought up the subject. The MOE has the largest operating budget in the Thai gov. what a shame to see a country destroy itself and its childrens future by stealing every satang allocated to the school system.

[sparebox2]

Well done Thailand. I have faith in you to be ASEAN leader in education. Thailand shall bypass Singapore in no time.

[Ijustwannateach]

This is an interesting development- and I certainly do think that Thai students have every bit as much potential and strength as Singaporean or any other students in Asia- but it is likely to lead to a great deal of insecurity and instability in the meantime. Thai students particularly are weak in English relative to students in countries like Singapore, and there will be a big reality check to pay when they realise they can't be shielded from that anymore by national barriers. An outstanding, amazingly fluent Thai speaker of English would simply be 'normal' in the context of Singapore.

However, Thailand has its own advantages, especially in science/math, which will keep it ahead of a number of other countries while they do real work (I hope) on solving this problem. Then we get to see the reality check handed to teachers here, especially language teachers. Interesting times for education.

[SabaiBKK]

well the level of education in thailand is so low that I decided that in 2013 i will pack my bags and go back to europe to offer real education to my daughters (and most important learning to question and reason by themselves) ... my niece was in her 3rd year of journalism at bangkok university and one day i just tested her and her friends knowledge and it was just incredibly low. simple questions like what is the capital of brazil or some basic 10th grade historical facts found no answer, even simple questions about thai history found no answers ... a few years ago the BP questionned 2nd year students of political science from Chula and they could not even tell who was Jimmy Carter and could not place sweden on a map. when i look at the work that my 9 years old who is in a (private international school) i'm appaled as her program is not even on par whith what i was taught when I was 7 in europe. She will maybe lose 1 year in europe but I prefer this to letting her having a mediocre education and think that cheating is normal, abusing foreigners is normal, that money is the most important thing in life, that people with money and power are always right, that corruption is normal etc...etc...

[thaicbr]

Well done Thailand. I have faith in you to be ASEAN leader in education. Thailand shall bypass Singapore in no time.

That was a tongue firmly in cheek statement. wasn't it. I hope so.

[anterian]

This is an interesting development- and I certainly do think that Thai students have every bit as much potential and strength as Singaporean or any other students in Asia- but it is likely to lead to a great deal of insecurity and instability in the meantime. Thai students particularly are weak in English relative to students in countries like Singapore, and there will be a big reality check to pay when they realise they can't be shielded from that anymore by national barriers. An outstanding, amazingly fluent Thai speaker of English would simply be 'normal' in the context of Singapore.

However, Thailand has its own advantages, especially in science/math, which will keep it ahead of a number of other countries while they do real work (I hope) on solving this problem. Then we get to see the reality check handed to teachers here, especially language teachers. Interesting times for education.

" Thailand has its own advantages, especially in science/math", really, are you sure? I don't mean the top few percent who win competitions, I mean the average graduate. Compare such to Singapore they are pathetic.

[BigJohnnyBKK]

Non-wealthy Thai students have as much potential as those of any other country, until they actually enter the educational system. Then every year they become less capable of learning effectively, and by the time they are 10-12 most of them are hopelessly lost cases.

If the Thai political-economic system based its rewards on actual performance in a relatively free marketplace where rule of law was more respected, this might have a chance of changing.

Asking those involved in the Thai education system to help improve things in any other countries is a total joke.

[PaulDee]

well the level of education in thailand is so low that I decided that in 2013 i will pack my bags and go back to europe to offer real education to my daughters (and most important learning to question and reason by themselves) ... my niece was in her 3rd year of journalism at bangkok university and one day i just tested her and her friends knowledge and it was just incredibly low. simple questions like what is the capital of brazil or some basic 10th grade historical facts found no answer, even simple questions about thai history found no answers ... a few years ago the BP questionned 2nd year students of political science from Chula and they could not even tell who was Jimmy Carter and could not place sweden on a map. when i look at the work that my 9 years old who is in a (private international school) i'm appaled as her program is not even on par whith what i was taught when I was 7 in europe. She will maybe lose 1 year in europe but I prefer this to letting her having a mediocre education and think that cheating is normal, abusing foreigners is normal, that money is the most important thing in life, that people with money and power are always right, that corruption is normal etc...etc...

Well said and worth expanding upon and repeating for wider dissemination -- including in the Thai media. Most won't care about a farang's point of view on the topic, but some will. Maybe you will touch a chord in the right hearts.

[Ijustwannateach]

This is an interesting development- and I certainly do think that Thai students have every bit as much potential and strength as Singaporean or any other students in Asia- but it is likely to lead to a great deal of insecurity and instability in the meantime. Thai students particularly are weak in English relative to students in countries like Singapore, and there will be a big reality check to pay when they realise they can't be shielded from that anymore by national barriers. An outstanding, amazingly fluent Thai speaker of English would simply be 'normal' in the context of Singapore.

However, Thailand has its own advantages, especially in science/math, which will keep it ahead of a number of other countries while they do real work (I hope) on solving this problem. Then we get to see the reality check handed to teachers here, especially language teachers. Interesting times for education.

" Thailand has its own advantages, especially in science/math", really, are you sure? I don't mean the top few percent who win competitions, I mean the average graduate. Compare such to Singapore they are pathetic.

The students who do well in this subject here do REALLY well, and though it is true that they are in a minority, their ability is significantly disproportionately represented internationally that I think it points to greater potential- if enough of the right teachers are put out there. It is not only in the privileged few where one finds these standout talents, though privilege certainly helps some of them get ahead.

Once more pressure is applied towards competent teaching (and therefore well-compensated teaching), I think Thailand may greatly surprise a number of people. The question is whether or not Myanmar will scoot past them so fast that they can catch up or not.