Tdri Research To Focus On Improving Quality Of Education

[Lite Beer]

TDRI research to focus on improving quality of education

Wannapa Khaopa

The Nation on Sunday

Somkiat

BANGKOK: -- A national think-tank will continue to conduct its research on education, especially basic schooling, to ease the dropout problem and improve learning outcomes at schools with different levels of performance before giving concrete policy recommendations to the government, according to its president.

The Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI) will focus its research studies on improving the quality of education in Thailand, TDRI president Somkiat Tangkitvanich said.

"The educational research projects will focus on basic education to prevent dropouts," he said at a recent seminar.

Somkiat added that lots of students had dropped out from Matthayom 1 (Grade 7) to Matthayom 6 (Grade 12) or the third year of vocational certificate level. The student retention rate of Matthayom 1 was around 85 per cent but it was down to about 54 per cent when they were in Matthayom 6 or the third year of vocational certificate level.

TDRI pointed out to the public early this year that Thailand was losing out in terms of education - not because of the lack of resources but a lack of accountability.

The seminar was part of the Proceedings Institutional Research Symposium 2012 held at Impact Muang Thong Thani by the Association of Institutional Research and Higher Education Development this month, and attended by representatives from many universities who are involved with research projects.

Also, TDRI will do a pilot project at selected schools; students and schools will be separated into different groups. TDRI will set the learning outcome for each group, then adjust the teaching and learning techniques to suit students and schools with different performance levels. TDRI will then compare the students' achievements with the desired learning outcome.

"We will do the experiment at the pilot schools, which is an evidence-based practice. If we succeed in enhancing their achievement, we will scale up, so students and schools with similar performance can use similar techniques. Later on, we will propose policy recommendations to the government," Somkiat said.

Sutham Vanichseni, PhD, founder of SVI Initiatives Ltd, a strategy, competitiveness and policy consulting company, said today's education situation was very challenging. Thailand had to prepare students to become working people for the next 10 years while there were many problems and obstacles in many parts of the education system and each part interrelated or correlated with one another.

His research showed that educational service area offices are not ready when the Education Ministry decentralises power to them. Offices with weak capacity will not be able to fulfil the required roles. Decentralisation without capacity building brought more confusion and a false sense of achievement than real value in education improvements. This caused a weak link in the system with varying school-based management capability and resources.

The research found curriculum development and implementation had failed to deliver, teacher education was in over-supply and of varying quality while professional licensure had not been a professional standard bearer. Not all key areas of education system had received proper assessments.

"A system of coherent and aligned policies is necessary to aid system evolution. The heart of improvement is in the implementation [of policies] in complexity not just using top-down instructions. Also, assessments to look at the progress in improvements are crucial," Sutham added.

Professor Somwang Phithiyanuwat, chairman of the committee of Office of National Education Standards and Quality Assessment, urged the universities to do research projects and theses that would point out the causes of good and bad impact on the education system for further improvements.

-- The Nation 2012-12-23

[culicine]

Forget research studies - student outcomes won't improve much with 50-70 students in a class. Even the best teacher in the world cannot do much but lecturing with such class sizes. Western countries limit class sizes to 25-30 for very good reasons.

[chainarong]

What really is required is a education HuB at Hat YI , seriously, the education system in Thailand needs a lot investment, fifty Plus years turn around , to bring it on track, on a par with say US, OZ or Japan to name a few, you would also obtain from high education countries ,the teaching skills and the know how , to show the Thai's how it is done , therein lies the problem, they don't like being told by outsiders, that their way is wrong , very wrong. If things don't change they will remain the same

[jerrysteve]

There are already superior models outside of Thailand that they can implement without having to re-invent the wheel.

If is DOUBTFUL that the TDRI RESEARCH can do any better than the current superior models which exist in the west.

All the Thinking in the World by this so called THINK TANK will not raise the bar one iota. History makes the rules here and nothing has changed with respect to classroom sizes and a whole lot more.

And in so far as the English programs are concerned and no matter how good they are even at the UNIVERSITY LEVELS here, they fail to teach the IDIOMS

and the Nunances which contain at leat 50 percent of all native languages through out the world.

[bigbamboo]

Nice to hear something positive on TV.

Hope it isn't just more talk.

[jaltsc]

Nothing is going to improve until there is a change in the Thai culture in which students are passed to avoid having their families lose face. Students need to be held accountable for learning the curriculum and demonstrating their proficiency through fair and rigid testing. In addition, there needs to be higher standards required for the faculty members of all schools. No improvements will work if the "good old boy" network remains intact.

[culicine]

There are already superior models outside of Thailand that they can implement without having to re-invent the wheel.

If is DOUBTFUL that the TDRI RESEARCH can do any better than the current superior models which exist in the west.

All the Thinking in the World by this so called THINK TANK will not raise the bar one iota. History makes the rules here and nothing has changed with respect to classroom sizes and a whole lot more.

And in so far as the English programs are concerned and no matter how good they are even at the UNIVERSITY LEVELS here, they fail to teach the IDIOMS

and the Nunances which contain at leat 50 percent of all native languages through out the world.

Actually we teach idioms and phrasal verbs (already taught from early grades), from about m4 level. I guess the standard varies between english programs, as it does across regular schools, regardless of that is in the curriculum.

As for not knowing what is done in the 'west', education students already learn all of the important educational theories - Bloom's taxonomy, Vygotsky, etc, they just don't implement any of these ideas, preferring the rote learning style. Educationalists have tried pushing modern teaching methods, but schools don't follow suit. What should happen is the MoE forces change - write a non-multiple choice exam at the appropriate level. Let the schools know this has been done and you better teach the students in the way that will have them actually understand the material (rather than take a random stab and choose a letter).

[thomash]

At least someone is publicly addressing this problem but it is going to take a lot more then just some research and suggestions. There are a lot of factors in the poor education system in Thailand they have tried to solve it with putting more money into education but for the most part it has gone down the drain or should I say in to someones pocket. The people in the know who I've talked to about this problem, as I use to be an English teacher here, say most of the "elite" really do not want the average Thai to get a good education but prefer to dumb them down in order to maintain their power and control over them. So then they really do not care that massive numbers are dropping out of high school or that they are getting an inadequate education. Meanwhile they send their own kids to private school and to overseas Universities.

[Rancid]

So how is the think tank getting paid? Many western countries have falling educational standards and abismal literacy rates so copying those leftist union heavy models would be a complete waste of time, maybe Singapore or HK? Regardless mothing is going change, the PTB could have fixed things decades ago, same with the corrupt police, things are left as they are as that is the way they want it. Good for the yearly press release though.

[siampolee]

These self professed experts might do well to see how the education system functions in Finland

The ongoing education of teachers and the involvement of students by example and challenge is exactly what should be happening here rather than the whole school having to bow down and praise the teachers as absolute oracles who cannot be questioned or ever be wrong.

A large percentage of Thai teachers are in fact not properly qualified, the Thai English language teachers are besotted with grammar. Grammar is not the language, its the bells and whistles that go with English and other languages for that matter too, it's all about conversation and communication that can be understood irrespective of the rules of grammar.Grammar comes along later ,of course if the language is being taught correctly the basic grammar usage is there.The same applies to all other subjects, if they're taught properly by qualified motivated teachers there should be no problems

Answers are written on the board in the classroom so as little Sonchai and little Porntip achieve a 100% grade as if he doesn't it makes the teachers look inefficient. Cross curriculum links don't exist ,every subject is in its own little box and therefore they never meet each other, indeed a narrow field of mental stimulation

This wonderful system of copy the answers from the board and the we must finish the course book syndrome has over the years produced a grand bunch of ill educated people.

One wonders if the fossils in the Education Ministry realize that todays children are the country's future ?

Edited December 23, 2012 by siampolee

[MaxLee]

What a waste of time: same thing all over again:

1. Crate a public image "as if we care, we make new policies, (only for the public image aka face)

2. Propose so called policies that are nothing else than the same crap in disguise which are: MORE EXAMS, MORE COMPLICATED PROCEDURES TO GET TO SO CALLED HIGHER QUALITY EDUCATION CENTERS, MORE CORRUPTION, MORE FACE SAVING NEPOTISM BENEFITTING THE RICH AND POWERFUL ONLY;NORE AND MORE SND MORE HOMEWORK in environments which will be full of more and more and more car owners, iPhone users, and schools with 100 students per class room than teachers actually can handle... and along the way there are Rice SCAMS AND MEGA SCAM PROJECTS that will continue to create a public face image of "oh yes we care" but in reality sh*****tload on the other provinces in order to promote Bangkok only Bangkok which sinks deeper and deeper into the ground due to an increase in cars, building projects etc, in which people will spend Sn increased average of 10 plus hours on the road

But in the mean time, millions of children in Thailand are kept in a prison yard for an increased 18 hours per day full of rote learning and increased homework system called Thai education system, in which students get the hell beaten out of them for thinking differently or asking questions that will cause Phu Yai to lose face.

About the issue of using violence against youngsters, and having been a witness myself at that time, let me just say " I may have been NOT THE RIGHT TEACHER, but I hate seeing kindergarten kids getting beaten up by furious teachers for simply being children. They didn't even help me to keep them in track, it was more like babysitting than actually teaching..." Just a thought based on my personal experience...

How can you expect millions if children with different personalities to be exactly the same??? That's just absurd…