Thai Education Reform: Students Win A Cut In Hours

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EDUCATION REFORM
Students win a cut in hours
Supinda na Mahachai,
Chularat Saengpassa
The Nation



Education chiefs agree to reduce classes by 200 hours a year

BANGKOK: -- The number of study hours at schools will drop to around 800 per year, as soon as big changes planned by the Education Ministry take effect.

In other words, at least 200 hours of study will be removed from Thai students' schedule each year.

In response to the fewer study hours, the curriculum will also see a major revamp and embrace project-based learning concept.

"We need just two more meetings to conclude on the major components of the plan," Dr Pavich Thongroj said yesterday in his capacity as the chairman of the curriculum reform and textbooks for basic education committee. He is also an adviser to the Education Ministry.

He said the plan for big changes in the educational system will be ready for implementation in a key phase before the end of this month. In its pivotal phase, the new model will be applied to Suankularb Wittayalai School, Bodin Decha School, Satriwitthaya School, Mahidol Witthayanusorn and Chulabhorn schools.

"Then, we should conclude on all the details within six months from now," Pavich said.

On Saturday, the Education Ministry convened its first curriculum reform meeting of 30 top education officials to brainstorm on the changes. Pavich was also present.

Emerging from the meeting, Education Minister Pongthep Thepkanchana announced that the meeting believed both primary and secondary students should study less than 800 hours per academic year so that they had more time to learn other skills from extra-curricular activities.

"We expect the lower number of study hours to boost students' learning efficiency too," he said.

Pongthep noted that students in some foreign countries had shown better academic performances despite the fact Thai students spent more time in classrooms.

Presently, secondary students in Thailand do 1,200 hours of study per academic year and primary students do 1,000 hours. Such numbers are among the highest in the world. In African countries, students are now required to sit 1,400 hours per academic year but their academic performance has fallen.

Japanese and South Korean students, meanwhile, have studied less than 1,000 hours per year and with good academic records. Hong Kong students who have studied only 790 hours per academic year are ranked third in the world for their academic performance.

UNESCO recommends about 800 hours per year as suitable.

"The fact that our students have so many study hours results from a wrong perception, attitude and belief that long hours would enable students to learn more. But it turns out that students end up spending too many hours in class and have less time to analyse things and learn other necessary skills for life,'' Pongthep said.

With the objective to reduce study hours to less than 800, Thai primary school students will do three hours less study per week and high school students four hours per week less, Pavich said.

His committee has also found the current curriculum had drawbacks that have resulted in students' poor and ineffective academic merit. The meeting noted that the curriculum was too concise, a style that worked with high-calibre teachers only because it opened room for teachers to adapt and design what was best for their classes. However, most teachers need more guidance from the curriculum.

"So, we have to revamp the curriculum," he said.

Pavich said the fewer hours of class would not affect the quality of education because students could learn through project-based learning. "Students will have the chance to access diversified branches of knowledge and are happy with learning and not feeling like they are being jailed in classrooms,'' he said.

Assoc Prof Dr Sompong Jitradab, Chulalongkorn University lecturer agreed with the reduction of number of hours in class, saying students need more time to learn other skills that will help them survive in modern society. He has called for the ministry to scrap the current curriculum and write a new one, saying the current one, which has been used 12 years, is outdated and has many drawbacks.

Pavich said after the curriculum was revamped, he would push for the setting up of a National Curriculum Committee. "The committee will constantly improve the curriculum, where necessary," he said.

The ministry now plans to push teacher reforms, to improve teaching of science, technology, maths and languages, plus ICT for education.

Profile

Study Hours Per Academic Year
Thai students 1,000 - 1,200
African students 1,400
Hong Kong students 790
Japanese/South Korean students lower than 1,000


-- The Nation 2013-03-11

[sirchai]

Forget the morning assembly, where NOBODY's listening to what's being said. Practicing how to march wearing a boy scout uniform isn't really necessary.

Teach them instead of always testing them and things will change. Let people order proper English books without mistakes and tests that have no mistakes.

Last but not least. Make teachers understand that they're not right after god.......

[Payboy]

It's not the hours you put in, but what you put in the hours.

[JetsetBkk]

Dämn! Traffic jams 30 minutes earlier each afternoon.

[nakhonandy]

Actually this makes a lot of sense.

Maybe they could use the extra hours the teachers have to train them!

Agree with the rubbish about scouting and marching also, anything such as that should be voluntary.

[asupeartea]

Fewer Mickey Mouse activities would help. Don't have a week off before an event to prepare, a week off for the event itself, then a week after to clean up afterwards.

Plan things in advanced. Make sure everyone involved knows what is happening.

[drdoom6996]

Forget the morning assembly, where NOBODY's listening to what's being said. Practicing how to march wearing a boy scout uniform isn't really necessary.

Teach them instead of always testing them and things will change. Let people order proper English books without mistakes and tests that have no mistakes.

Last but not least. Make teachers understand that they're not right after god.......

I agree completely. Sending that much homework for the smaller kids just causes the parents to do it anyway.

[nickjam]

More uncoordinated pissing in the wind from the 'experts'. Whilst I hope that their meetings do prove fruitful and to be fair it looks like they are actually taking some action, I just can't get past several simplistic bits of reasoning which suggests to me they still haven't fully grasped the scale of the problem.

"Pongthep noted that students in some foreign countries had shown better academic performances despite the fact Thai students spent more time in classrooms"

OK maybe they did, but maybe it was a combination of factors such as properly trained teachers, forward thinking professionals who constantly want to improve their practice, manageable class sizes, a proper testing system, tests not written by idiots, no bribery and corruption in their schools, interested parents. I could go on.

When Dr Pavich had the opportunity to give us his expert opinion on project based learning, he demonstrated that he had no idea what it really is.

"Students will have the chance to access diversified branches of knowledge and are happy with learning and not feeling like they are being jailed in classrooms,'' Maybe this is a bad translation or bad paraphrasing by the paper but you would think a man of such central importance to this would be able to provide a better summation of this pedagogy.

I will happily eat my proverbial hat if I am wrong and I again wish them every success but I just don't think these guys are fully capable of dealing with this massively important issue. They don't have a full grasp on the huge number of problems and can therefore never expect to fully fix them. (We're talking getting new teachers, re-training old teachers, extra school infrastructure, better pay, big change in attitude from a lot of people etc.) These kind of things are not easy to fix. These guys just say random nonsensical shit and are believed.

[diggledunc]

More uncoordinated pissing in the wind from the 'experts'. Whilst I hope that their meetings do prove fruitful and to be fair it looks like they are actually taking some action, I just can't get past several simplistic bits of reasoning which suggests to me they still haven't fully grasped the scale of the problem.

"Pongthep noted that students in some foreign countries had shown better academic performances despite the fact Thai students spent more time in classrooms"

OK maybe they did, but maybe it was a combination of factors such as properly trained teachers, forward thinking professionals who constantly want to improve their practice, manageable class sizes, a proper testing system, tests not written by idiots, no bribery and corruption in their schools, interested parents. I could go on.

When Dr Pavich had the opportunity to give us his expert opinion on project based learning, he demonstrated that he had no idea what it really is.

"Students will have the chance to access diversified branches of knowledge and are happy with learning and not feeling like they are being jailed in classrooms,'' Maybe this is a bad translation or bad paraphrasing by the paper but you would think a man of such central importance to this would be able to provide a better summation of this pedagogy.

I will happily eat my proverbial hat if I am wrong and I again wish them every success but I just don't think these guys are fully capable of dealing with this massively important issue. They don't have a full grasp on the huge number of problems and can therefore never expect to fully fix them. (We're talking getting new teachers, re-training old teachers, extra school infrastructure, better pay, big change in attitude from a lot of people etc.) These kind of things are not easy to fix. These guys just say random nonsensical shit and are believed.

Agree with what you say but what doesn't seem to be said is Thai students attitude to learning compared to other countries such as Hong Kong.

A comparison was made for me at Khon Kaen university where they said Koreans are just tunnel-visioned learners really go for it. Japanese are not for behind but Thais in general just can't get their heads down in the same way.

As Payboy says its what you put into the hours but I would extend that to say it is also what the students are prepared to do to get out of lessons what the teachers put in. In the case of Thais that is questionable particularly in Isan where I live. Maybe cities are different.

Think asupeartea is right as well. Look at Children's Day. What a mess and really what does loosing all that time achieve to see 7 year old kids trying to dance a routine which is far to hard. My local school closed last year two weeks after it opened following the holidays for painting for two weeks. What good organisation is that. It closed for three days because one of the teacher's sons was going to the temple for a week. Another week closed because a teacher's parent died and I could go on. People in the village laugh and tell me I should teach English there as I wouldn't have to work a lot because the school is always closed.

Introspection is not a Thai virtue pity somebody can't just turn round and say we the government, the schools, the parents and lastly the teachers all need to change their attitudes and outlook. It's the children that matter not their pockets being full of teamoney.

[lostinisaan]

Our school was closed for more than a week, because guys from other provinces came for a sport competition and slept inside the school.

Many hours were cancelled to do some unbelievable ASEAN learning bs. Then the sports week. Who knows the basket game? Little kids standing on plastic chairs are trying to catch or toss a ball into a basket which a kid has to hold, also standing on such a chair.

Loosing the balance is that easy and many injuries already programmed.

The kids have to be tested weekly, instead of testing the teachers' brains. They check the kids teeth, but brain damaged educators do all that the kids show a similar behavior

Could a high school senior student correct a teacher? ( Guess we all make mistakes sometimes) The answer is NO. No way to say to a "teacher" that a word's misspelled, or whatsoever.

We have big posters in English: " No junk food." Do they know what that means? I doubt it, they only sell junk food outside the gate.

We have meeting after meeting. last meeting was about obesity of our kids, 10 % of them are too big/fat. Well, some of that stuff is being sold in front of the school.

Gate duty: You see little kids coming to school with a coke in their hand. Would any of these educators tell them how unhealthy that is?

They can cut hours, have better teaching material and so on. But if they don't change their loss of face attitude, the country will go down.

Would the kids fail in a subject, then they would freaking listen, instead of playing games on their call phones.

Repeating a school year would change many kids' behavior. Are the retarded students separated? No, they "study" in an ordinary class, get decent grades and pass all grades.

More teachers could be employed and those with huge learning deficits could go to a special school with special teachers.

All in all, I've missed about a third of my lessons because of some unnecessary activities. But all have passed in English, even those who were never listening.

The wake up call will come if such a good student becomes a doctor and the teacher is her/his patient. Gotta love this. Or not.

.

Edited March 11, 2013 by lostinisaan

[brubakertx]

I'm sorry, but many schools in Thailand are a joke! Schools need to learn how to fail the bad students, and remove bad students. Get rid of the rotten eggs, and the rest of the Thai students will excel.

Edited March 11, 2013 by brubakertx

[Phatcharanan]

I'm sorry, but many schools in Thailand are a joke! Schools need to learn how to fail the bad students, and remove bad students. Get rid of the rotten eggs, and the rest of the Thai students will excel.

Interesting concept.

So at what age would you start to remove the 'bad and rotten' students?

When you remove them, where would they go?

[khaowong1]

Average number of students in a classroom in the US.. 24.. Average number of hours per year in a classroom in the US.. 1932..

[diggledunc]

Our school was closed for more than a week, because guys from other provinces came for a sport competition and slept inside the school.

Many hours were cancelled to do some unbelievable ASEAN learning bs. Then the sports week. Who knows the basket game? Little kids standing on plastic chairs are trying to catch or toss a ball into a basket which a kid has to hold, also standing on such a chair.

Loosing the balance is that easy and many injuries already programmed.

The kids have to be tested weekly, instead of testing the teachers' brains. They check the kids teeth, but brain damaged educators do all that the kids show a similar behavior

Could a high school senior student correct a teacher? ( Guess we all make mistakes sometimes) The answer is NO. No way to say to a "teacher" that a word's misspelled, or whatsoever.

We have big posters in English: " No junk food." Do they know what that means? I doubt it, they only sell junk food outside the gate.

We have meeting after meeting. last meeting was about obesity of our kids, 10 % of them are too big/fat. Well, some of that stuff is being sold in front of the school.

Gate duty: You see little kids coming to school with a coke in their hand. Would any of these educators tell them how unhealthy that is?

They can cut hours, have better teaching material and so on. But if they don't change their loss of face attitude, the country will go down.

Would the kids fail in a subject, then they would freaking listen, instead of playing games on their call phones.

Repeating a school year would change many kids' behavior. Are the retarded students separated? No, they "study" in an ordinary class, get decent grades and pass all grades.

More teachers could be employed and those with huge learning deficits could go to a special school with special teachers.

All in all, I've missed about a third of my lessons because of some unnecessary activities. But all have passed in English, even those who were never listening.

The wake up call will come if such a good student becomes a doctor and the teacher is her/his patient. Gotta love this. Or not.

.

Couldn't agree more. In Uk I once asked a teacher why so many were passing exams. They said 'well if they weren't given passes the school would look bad' so it's not just Thailand. What I find here though is that to many things are done just so teachers have an easy life. (talking Isan now) If a child gets 0 on the 0-4 scale what happens? the teacher gives them something to do and then as if by magic the student is better gets a 1 and the teacher has no problems. At a big school near me which takes Matayom 6 they didn't even check to see if the children had actually turned up and stayed all day.

What will be sad for the kids is when they can't restrict labour flows which I understand, please correct me if I am wrong, will happen the kids jobs will be taken by foreigners who will anyway work for less. Will that mean more girls have only one career alternative!!!

Will wait and see.

[Locationthailand]

If they reduce the hours, I hope they reduce the costs of education as well. Wishful thinking I know...

[Stokakrishna]

great!!!

make them more stupid

[YLPO]

Im not really certain how much positive effect the new law will have on the student's learning...i just hope they are learning quality materials...knowledge about other countries and global issues are also very important....the system should educate the students on cultures other than American and European.

[Lucie]

I beg to differ from everyone else in my thoughts on this article. As a teacher here for 10 years, and the mother of 2 kids who are in a Thai school, this is exactly the right first step in reforming the education system. As the article said, the kids spend too much time in a classroom, and not enough time gaining other valuable skills. Most Thai students have no life skills whatsoever... just a good short-term memory for unconnected facts and figures.

BUT... here are a few reasons why it won't actually have the desired effect:

1. Working parents need school as a babysitting service. Cut the number of compulsory hours, and the number of after school 'extra classes' will rise to compensate.

2. My school currently goes over the limit set by the government. They fix the books to make it look like the kids get 6 periods a day, but they actually get 7. If they can do it now, they'll continue to do it.

3. Despite this uncharacteristic display of good sense by the Ministry of Education, that sense won't trickle down to the teachers and the parents. They will still continue to want more and more hours of study in order to be 'competitive'... Once again, extra classes will win the day...

[culicine]

I beg to differ from everyone else in my thoughts on this article. As a teacher here for 10 years, and the mother of 2 kids who are in a Thai school, this is exactly the right first step in reforming the education system. As the article said, the kids spend too much time in a classroom, and not enough time gaining other valuable skills. Most Thai students have no life skills whatsoever... just a good short-term memory for unconnected facts and figures.

BUT... here are a few reasons why it won't actually have the desired effect:

1. Working parents need school as a babysitting service. Cut the number of compulsory hours, and the number of after school 'extra classes' will rise to compensate.

2. My school currently goes over the limit set by the government. They fix the books to make it look like the kids get 6 periods a day, but they actually get 7. If they can do it now, they'll continue to do it.

3. Despite this uncharacteristic display of good sense by the Ministry of Education, that sense won't trickle down to the teachers and the parents. They will still continue to want more and more hours of study in order to be 'competitive'... Once again, extra classes will win the day...

I agree. Even if this is legislated, schools will continue to do what they want. Just look at the number of kids that get caned every year is schools here, yet corporal punishment is supposed to be banned. Like you stated, parents will be concerned with the reduced hours and send their kids for more tutorial classes (which in my opinion only benefit the high fliers anyway).

Perhaps they should look at the sheer number of subjects that are studied and start culling them, especially in highschool. Is it really necessary for M6 boys to be learning dance and guidance? Drop all subjects they have little interest in. A maximum of 6 or 7 subjects should be studied in m4-m6. They study these in depth and should be ready for university, without the need for tutorial classes (whose main business is to make money anyway, with no regard to student outcomes).

Anyway, it's more to do with the quality of learning that is taking place. Reducing the number of hours of rote learning will just mean scores on standardised tests will be even lower. The curriculum, assessment, and teaching training (and particularly their role in the classroom), all need to dramatically change. But I'm not holding my breath...