Thailand: Schools 'Should Be Held Accountable'

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TOP RESEARCH GROUPS

Schools 'should be held accountable'

Chularat Saengpassa

Wannapa Khaopa

The Nation

Academic results should be made public, directors held liable: TDRI

BANGKOK: -- Thailand should make major reforms to its assessments of the education system, as they do not really help boost students' academic performance, according to a local research group.

To cope with the chronic problem in terms of quality of education, Ammar Siamwalla, a PhD and distinguished scholar at Thailand Development Research Institute, suggested that accountability be created in the education system.

Somkiat Tangkitvanich PhD, vice president of TDRI, said in an exclusive interview with Nation Multimedia Group publications: "We would propose to revoke or majorly reform the assessments regarding schools and teachers the Education Ministry has been doing, because teachers have to waste their time providing lots of documents for the assessments and students are left behind.

"Only around 3.3 per cent of total scores are given to the student performance consideration in a teacher assessment for a salary hike while most of the scores' consideration is based on teachers' discipline and morality, in which teachers can use nepotism to pass the assessment," he said.

Also, most key performance indi?cators (KPIs) of the school external assessment operated by the Office for National Education Standards and Quality Assessment (Onesqa) did not focus on academic performance. Only one KPI looked exactly at the performance. More schools passed the Onesqa's second assessment. This reversed a worse academic performance in national tests and international tests by Thai students, Somkiat added.

"Politicians don't have enough influence to force government officials to be accountable to anything," Ammar said.

"When a patient dies due to medical malpractice, the Public Health Ministry will be engaged in accountability for the death. When half of the students in the country fail in national and international tests, including Ordinary National Educational Test (Onet) and the Programme for International Student Assessment, but the Education Ministry still remains silent," he said, adding that accountability should be implemented in education.

Somkiat explained, therefore, that moves need to be implemented to create accountability in education.

Each school's performance should be made public, he said, like Onet scores, and everyone have access to the information so parents know the performance of their children's schools compared to other schools. He urged schools to give parents report cards the same as what is done in Parana State in Brazil. The cards compare a school's average score in a standardised test with nearby schools and others in the same state.

"Parents know how well each near?by school is able to do. This will help them decide if they should move their children to other schools or force the schools to improve," Ammar said.

"The Education Minister could help make the information public, just by signing to approve opening the information," he said.

The second suggestion was to allow schools to be managed inde?pendently. At present, they cannot select people who they want to recruit as teachers. They should select teach?ers by themselves and be responsible if those recruited cannot teach well enough, Somkiat said.

He also urged that students' aca?demic performance be a major ele?ment of school and teacher assess?ments - to reward schools when stu?dents perform better.

"But if any schools fail to achieve the goals, they must be accountable for the failure, like what the US has done," he said.

In the event of two consecutive years of failure, students must be allowed to move to other schools and a quality improvement plan created.

For three consecutive years of fail?ure, they must provide tutorial class?es free of charge. For four consecu?tive years, they must change person?nel, curriculum and teaching meth?ods. For five consecutive years, they must create a plan to change the school administrative structure; and for six consecutive years, they must implement the plan or be closed, he said.

TDRI will tomorrow hold a sem?inar entitled 'Revamping the Thai Education System: Quality for All' at the Centara Grand Hotel at CentralWorld.

"The private sector is fed up with Thailand's education system," Ammar said, adding that TDRI was duty-bound to raise the issue.

Somkiat said although TDRI offi?cials were not experts in education, it decided to host the seminar because many people had encouraged it to look into education problems.

-- The Nation 2012-02-14

[Dap]

Good points raised and sound measures offered, though to what end.

Those that care haven't the power/influence to force the issues,

and those with the power/influence don't care.

Seems just another exercise in futility.

[sparebox2]

Why Thai school are so much in love with Multiple Choice Test? Even in language subjects like "Verbal part of English"..

I really don't know.

[thaicbr]

The tests themselves are flawed, mistakes abound. It really is a turkey shoot. The students may actually be BETTER than the tests show. simply because they do not understand the question because it is incorrectly written or in fact has multiple answers.

The teachers licence test is a good case in point as well.

But no one is writing and telling the papers (or if they are, they are not printing it) because well.... mai pen rai...what can i do.

[fiercesnake]

Some excellent suggestions! Unfortunately it will be just another discussion as these people are not in power and those in power are interested only in "looking good".

People, experts and business can complain, discuss, blog until the cows come home about major educational weaknesses in Thai government schools but nothing changes. The government over many years has systematically failed to improve education for the masses for a long time, not just the present government. I would suggest that the great bulk of politicians' kids are educated in wealthy private or international schools and as such many of these politicians would have degrees from accredited overseas universities.

Not only do governments think in the 3 to 4 year term for re-election purposes but they also know the system is flawed as they personally benefit for their own businesses from the masses lacking any real education which gives them a large cheap uneducated and therefore lowly paid workforce. True educational benefits take years to realize, as the ultimate gain to society is hardly ever achieved quickly and certainly the government that improved education will not reap the benefits for many years until large groups of people go through an improved system to better their society at a much later date. Very few politicians are deeply concerned for the advancement of their society as a whole or the "vision" for the future; rather more their own petty materialistic vision for themselves and their own rich business portfolio.

These proposals will fall on deaf ears and the usual political response will be "we're looking into it (with a smile)"!

[tragickingdom]

Using the US system as an example is quite frankly laughable. If one system fails it is that of the US. I rather like to believe that most teachers are good people and great professionals but that there are numerous other reasons that educations falters. There is no good material available, people are not free to think what they want and must be told to fit the system.

It all will start with a change in mentality. For that to happen we have to wait for maximum 10 more years till the dinosaurs have died out.

[Ijustwannateach]

Why Thai school are so much in love with Multiple Choice Test? Even in language subjects like "Verbal part of English"..

I really don't know.

Because students like them, because they are easy to cheat on.

[kanderson]

Using the US system as an example is quite frankly laughable. If one system fails it is that of the US. I rather like to believe that most teachers are good people and great professionals but that there are numerous other reasons that educations falters. There is no good material available, people are not free to think what they want and must be told to fit the system.

It all will start with a change in mentality. For that to happen we have to wait for maximum 10 more years till the dinosaurs have died out.

I just enrolled my son in USA school (Hawaii). It appears quite different from my days - tutors - after school programs etc etc.. Clear goals for learning, for example "count to 30). Hey - breakfast is served and usually all this stuff for free or low cost. I am happy to see such excellent programs for kids (all kids). Right now nearly everyone is down with colds - including me.

I do think USA is making good progress in the education area - from what I have witnessed as a parent so far. Schools were good "in my neighborhood" when I was young, but 20 miles away the students suffered - no doubt. USA has been working on this plan I guess. Looks like they came up with some good stuff.