Testing Service Chief Wants Bad Students To Repeat Grades: Thailand

[chiangmaikelly]

Dance is important and it fits in with the positive vibes of not holding students back. Coloring is another subject that is often neglected in high schools and colleges of other countries.

Maybe I missed it but in the last page I asked, “If you don't hold students back how do the inept doctors get to do brain surgery and the uncoordinated pilots fly airplanes?”

What grade should you say, No. You can't go on unless you are qualified?

Edited September 5, 2012 by chiangmaikelly

[culicine]

How many times would a child be expected to repeat a failed grade, I suspect some would die of old age in the classroom.

I failed a couple of 'O' Levels in school, one of them spectacularly, as I either detested the subject or just really couldn't do it. It didn't stop me from moving on to the next level with the subjects that I could do.

Are Thai children expected to get a pass mark on every subject they take?........ serious question.

The odd student will be held back a year if our school really believes that they should not progress to the next level. My understanding of the current laws is that schools CAN hold students back regardless of the parents wishes (in the past, parents would have to agree with this).

Personally I believe school admin needs to take a leading role (in terms of private schools) - actually enforce the results of entrance exams and keep students who are most likely to fail out (this is usually due to non-existent english skills, especially for the higher grades). If the admin want to let in all students to keep their wallets fat, then at least provide remedial support. Neither of these happen at my school. Long term teachers are starting to dig their heels in now, and we are trying to force the hand of the school to deal with these issues.

Personally I don't believe in testing to the extent it's done in this country, but unfortunately we have to work in this system so we have to deal with it the best way we can.

[thunder30101]

The problem is the whole system is rotten to the core, from admin on down. How do you improve a system like this ? where do you start ? The education ministry has the largest budget of any dept. yet schools are falling down, teachers are paid a pittance, books are non existent or cut and paste clusterf&*ks. Its hard to blame any one thing yet you have to start somewhere. Deciding where to start is the problem.

[chiangmaikelly]

The problem is the whole system is rotten to the core, from admin on down. How do you improve a system like this ? where do you start ? The education ministry has the largest budget of any dept. yet schools are falling down, teachers are paid a pittance, books are non existent or cut and paste clusterf&*ks. Its hard to blame any one thing yet you have to start somewhere. Deciding where to start is the problem.

Easy. Farm the system out to another country. They use engineers from other countries to build roads and airports. What's wrong with using others to reform the education system?

[naboo]

Scrapping the ridiculous amount of testing that goes on in this country is the best way forward, IMHO of course.

What is the purpose of a test? To:

a) Inform the teacher of what the student does and doesn't understand

Inform the parents, school, education authorities and other stakeholders in the child's education of the progress they are making.

Why not let the teachers assess the students' understanding, then use that assessment themselves in their teaching to help the student to progress and use in class assessment to inform stakeholders in education? Ongoing formative assessments are far more informative than some stupid end of semester/end of year test that everybody passes or fails. In class assessments really do tell the teacher what the student understands. These assessments are far more important to the education process than summative assessments.

When it comes to formal education qualifications, we're talking M3 and M6 here (hopefully we can assume virtually all students now continue education past P6), we will need a standardised national testing service, similar to the ONET or SAT, that assesses students under test conditions, to a grade system of A-G.

Students never fail, students never pass, the whole idea of failing people before they're adults is obsolete, and instead at various stages of their education they're given a grade to show their progress and targets set for future learning. Students will then remain motivated to achieve better grades, nobody will be disheartened by the fact they fail test after test then pass by default, nobody will be left knowing they're smart enough to pass so don't need to try, as the smart ones will always be aiming for the top grades.

Develop a system whereby every student can see the progress they're making, every student has something to work towards, every student can see the successes coming from their hard work. Yes, it requires new skills from teachers. Yes, they might have to attend a meeting where they actually learn something rather than showing off how great the old guys are followed by listening to 6 hours of drivel. Yes, it would mean teachers would need to start differentiating (yes, that bloody word, which I don't think I can spell). But bloody hell, it might just create a bit of motivation in the classroom, it might allow teachers to teach to the level of the students rather than the ridiculous expected levels set by the curriculum and current exams, it might actually fulfill the requirements of assessment.

[thunder30101]

Farming out the system to who ? a western based education corp with no exp or understanding of the thai culture ? Not gonna work, too much resistance and the machine stops. Lets face it change will not come in our lifetimes but in two or three generations only after thailand falls so far behind other asean countries that they are forced to change. All I can do is teach to the ones that see the value in an education, the others, well there will always be farming, moto repair and bars. And Im not disrespecting these jobs either.

[Thaddeus]

Scrapping the ridiculous amount of testing that goes on in this country is the best way forward, IMHO of course.

The best way forward is to employ teachers that not only want to teach, but are also capable of teaching, not just as a want, but a desire.

(this is not limited to Thailand, but there are a heck of a lot of teachers here that value the uniform and medals over capability and attitude)

[naboo]

The best way forward is to employ teachers that not only want to teach, but are also capable of teaching, not just as a want, but a desire.

Are you advocating class sizes increasing 10 fold? There would never be enough people employed!

[chiangmaikelly]

Farming out the system to who ? a western based education corp with no exp or understanding of the thai culture ? Not gonna work, too much resistance and the machine stops. Lets face it change will not come in our lifetimes but in two or three generations only after thailand falls so far behind other asean countries that they are forced to change. All I can do is teach to the ones that see the value in an education, the others, well there will always be farming, moto repair and bars. And Im not disrespecting these jobs either.

Singapore.

[HowardV]

The problem, as I see it, lies with administrators and curriculum coordinators. There is already a national standard (BEC curriculum) handed down by the MOE, citing what students are expected to acquire at each grade level. The teachers and administrators/curriculum coordinators need to sit down and take a look at their textbooks and make sure that the teaching materials fulfill the needs of the expected learning outcomes from the MOE. They then need to organize their lesson plans to make sure that they are teaching each of these expected learning outcomes and that they have a system to assess students' mastery of the material. Administrators need to make sure that every teacher has a copy of this information in their own language. Textbooks should be chosen based on how well they conform to these standards. Samples of national tests should also be given to teachers so that they know what kinds of tests the students will be taking that year. Transparency and clear communication is vital.

The problem is that what actually happens is that teachers are hired and given very little direction. Communication is poor and often, the teaching materials have been chosen for the teachers based on what is available or affordable, with little or no thought as to whether the teaching materials do in fact teach the standards required by the MOE. Lesson plans are often not even submitted, but there is little follow-up even when they are. Many of the administrators who must sign off on the lesson plans are not well-acquainted with the MOE requirements or, in the case of English teaching, many of the government school administrators cannot themselves read or evaluate English materials well enough to actually sign off on the plans which have been submitted

Coordination and synchronization of MOE requirements, national curriculum and individual teachers' lesson plans and materials are sorely lacking in most Thai schools, if these processes exist at all. I sat in on curriculum coordination at an accredited international school and at a Thai government school, and the difference in the aptitude of the administrators/coordinators was like the difference between night and day. The accredited institutions spent the majority of a year just laying the groundwork, instructing teachers how to coordinate their curriculum with the national standards and using complex curriculum mapping software for this express purpose, while the government schools handed the responsibility down to the teachers and told them to write their own curriculum over a ten-day period. They had no idea what they were doing, and I find this to be the norm in most government schools.

[culicine]

The problem, as I see it, lies with administrators and curriculum coordinators. There is already a national standard (BEC curriculum) handed down by the MOE, citing what students are expected to acquire at each grade level. The teachers and administrators/curriculum coordinators need to sit down and take a look at their textbooks and make sure that the teaching materials fulfill the needs of the expected learning outcomes from the MOE. They then need to organize their lesson plans to make sure that they are teaching each of these expected learning outcomes and that they have a system to assess students' mastery of the material. Administrators need to make sure that every teacher has a copy of this information in their own language. Textbooks should be chosen based on how well they conform to these standards. Samples of national tests should also be given to teachers so that they know what kinds of tests the students will be taking that year. Transparency and clear communication is vital.

The problem is that what actually happens is that teachers are hired and given very little direction. Communication is poor and often, the teaching materials have been chosen for the teachers based on what is available or affordable, with little or no thought as to whether the teaching materials do in fact teach the standards required by the MOE. Lesson plans are often not even submitted, but there is little follow-up even when they are. Many of the administrators who must sign off on the lesson plans are not well-acquainted with the MOE requirements or, in the case of English teaching, many of the government school administrators cannot themselves read or evaluate English materials well enough to actually sign off on the plans which have been submitted

Coordination and synchronization of MOE requirements, national curriculum and individual teachers' lesson plans and materials are sorely lacking in most Thai schools, if these processes exist at all. I sat in on curriculum coordination at an accredited international school and at a Thai government school, and the difference in the aptitude of the administrators/coordinators was like the difference between night and day. The accredited institutions spent the majority of a year just laying the groundwork, instructing teachers how to coordinate their curriculum with the national standards and using complex curriculum mapping software for this express purpose, while the government schools handed the responsibility down to the teachers and told them to write their own curriculum over a ten-day period. They had no idea what they were doing, and I find this to be the norm in most government schools.

I agree with you. You can log onto any educational website either from the UK or Australia, and download the entire detailed syllabus. The maths syllabus from Australia (NSW HSC), for example, is 200 pages long and every expected outcome is outlined in detail. No need to even ask a school administrator. Furthermore, the HSC exams are aligned with both the curriculum and textbooks in these countries. This coordination is sorely lacking in Thailand, and is compounded when we must teach the Thai curriculum in english. All the information I have is the topic, but no information on the depth I need to teach it to.

It's also very difficult to obtain old national test exams in Thailand. I think I've seen one O-Net exam in the time I've been here. How can we teach students when we don't even know the style and depth of these exams?

I was given a M3 evaluation exam last week - this was mean't to test student knowledge of the M3 math curriculum - it was presented in both English and Thai. The problem is that these questions were presented in SAT style, which the students are not familiar with. So unless adequate information is given to teachers, and exams are correctly aligned with the curriculum, we are destined to continue having problems.

[Newguy70]

That would be more than half the student body at some of these schools, as most are failing more than one subject. I agree with a post prior that mentioned bringing others in from the outside to run things. However, we know that this will never happen.

Sometimes we have to take a few steps backwards, before we can move forward.

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