Education official: 580,000 Thais aged over 15 years are completely illiterate

[mojorison]

yes because they copy the american schoolsystem!

I'm not American... but that is BS. The similarities are non-existent.

[sam sen]

how much did they spend on the rice pledging scheme...? priorities eh?!

The rice pledging scheme has nothing to do with this. The 1 tablet per child does.

Since the average thai spends more money and more hours of study than almost all of the rest of the world yet their literacy is almost the lowest the scheme for tablets and ideas for teaching at home online and with videos that have been proposed are rediculous.

A friend who is a foreign teacher told me yesterday that he has pictures of what the students were studying just prior to their final test. The thai teacher did not teach the students. Instead she gave her students all the answers in numeric order to her classes so they only had to memormise the answers in order.

So how can thai students learn anything this way

Another teacher told me a private school he works in has no aircon at all. What motivation is there to do anything but be lazy and sleepy all day when you are hot and sweaty. Mind you this is no small private school.

When a student fails their grades are changed to make them pass.

The only way for the next generation to end this illiteracy is to change the systems of educating these kids and give them incentive to want to learn.

you miss the point; i was referring to the way the government prioritises its spending.

vote buying, self interest and staying in power is considered more important than the education of children in thailand - or providing adequate healthcare, or road safely for that matter....

[wolfmanjack]

how much did they spend on the rice pledging scheme...? priorities eh?!

The rice pledging scheme has nothing to do with this. The 1 tablet per child does.

Since the average thai spends more money and more hours of study than almost all of the rest of the world yet their literacy is almost the lowest the scheme for tablets and ideas for teaching at home online and with videos that have been proposed are rediculous.

A friend who is a foreign teacher told me yesterday that he has pictures of what the students were studying just prior to their final test. The thai teacher did not teach the students. Instead she gave her students all the answers in numeric order to her classes so they only had to memormise the answers in order.

So how can thai students learn anything this way

Another teacher told me a private school he works in has no aircon at all. What motivation is there to do anything but be lazy and sleepy all day when you are hot and sweaty. Mind you this is no small private school.

When a student fails their grades are changed to make them pass.

The only way for the next generation to end this illiteracy is to change the systems of educating these kids and give them incentive to want to learn.

The point sam sen was trying to make was the money wasted on the rice scam could have been used to better the educational system. Build better schools, buy computers, train qualified teachers, give free education and uniforms, etc.

I would add that a good education is more likely to raise the poor peoples standard of living in the long run than a rice scheme would.

Of course you are correct also. The system needs to be changed but before that can happen the mindset of the people in the system needs to change.

I do know some public schools are trying and they are a lot better than the ones that aren't but even those schools have to use the terrible school books approved by the ministry.

From what i see most people understand the need for a good education and try to send their kids to a more expensive school instead of trying to reform the public schools.

One question i would like to be answered is how many of the people in the education ministry have invested in a private school therefore have no interest in bringing the public schools up to international standards? After all if the public schools were turning out good students then there would be no need for as many private schools.

[thesetat2013]

how much did they spend on the rice pledging scheme...? priorities eh?!

The rice pledging scheme has nothing to do with this. The 1 tablet per child does.

Since the average thai spends more money and more hours of study than almost all of the rest of the world yet their literacy is almost the lowest the scheme for tablets and ideas for teaching at home online and with videos that have been proposed are rediculous.

A friend who is a foreign teacher told me yesterday that he has pictures of what the students were studying just prior to their final test. The thai teacher did not teach the students. Instead she gave her students all the answers in numeric order to her classes so they only had to memormise the answers in order.

So how can thai students learn anything this way

Another teacher told me a private school he works in has no aircon at all. What motivation is there to do anything but be lazy and sleepy all day when you are hot and sweaty. Mind you this is no small private school.

When a student fails their grades are changed to make them pass.

The only way for the next generation to end this illiteracy is to change the systems of educating these kids and give them incentive to want to learn.

The point sam sen was trying to make was the money wasted on the rice scam could have been used to better the educational system. Build better schools, buy computers, train qualified teachers, give free education and uniforms, etc.

I would add that a good education is more likely to raise the poor peoples standard of living in the long run than a rice scheme would.

Of course you are correct also. The system needs to be changed but before that can happen the mindset of the people in the system needs to change.

I do know some public schools are trying and they are a lot better than the ones that aren't but even those schools have to use the terrible school books approved by the ministry.

From what i see most people understand the need for a good education and try to send their kids to a more expensive school instead of trying to reform the public schools.

One question i would like to be answered is how many of the people in the education ministry have invested in a private school therefore have no interest in bringing the public schools up to international standards? After all if the public schools were turning out good students then there would be no need for as many private schools.

I think i understanded your point. What you may not know is that the education ministry has the largest budget than any other minstry in thailand. So this article is not about what other ministries are doing with their budgets like the rice scheme. At least from what i read. Those other projects dont affect the money used and obtained by and for the education ministry.

So dont apply here

Sent from my GT-S5310 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[wolfmanjack]

If the figures for the survey are taken from the educational system, 580,000 Thais aged over 15 years are completely illiterate and 1.1 million people aged between 15 and 59 years old are described as having a low level of literacy then there is a huge problem with the educational system.

If the survey has been conducted on a nation wide basis, as would be suggested by the low level of literacy (aged between 15 and 59) then I would be interested on how they arrived at these figures without a large guesstimation factor imputed.

The figures surely couldn't be based on grades while leaving school as nobody is allowed to fail..........................

This may be true in many schools but not in all. In my kids previous school there was a 15 year old kid that had failed several years in a row and was still in grade p6 with my 12 year old son.

The new school my son is at in m1 has a policy if they do not turn in every homework assignment they do not pass. I know this is true because my son got a 0 for a grade on his midterms. When I asked the teacher why he got a 0 she told me because he did not turn in one homework assignment and she told me that he would get a 3.6 if he completed that assignment. I flipped my lid because i could not understand how one homework assignment could cancel out all of the tests that he had taken so far that year. Afterwards she did allow him to complete the assignment and she changed his grade to the 3.6 for that class.

Based on my experience with public schools and what i have read here on TV I have to assume that the schools range from one extreme to the other as far as passing is concerned.

[alex8912]

yes because they copy the american schoolsystem!

Completely ignorant. Prove it big mouth!

[wolfmanjack]

how much did they spend on the rice pledging scheme...? priorities eh?!

The rice pledging scheme has nothing to do with this. The 1 tablet per child does.

Since the average thai spends more money and more hours of study than almost all of the rest of the world yet their literacy is almost the lowest the scheme for tablets and ideas for teaching at home online and with videos that have been proposed are rediculous.

A friend who is a foreign teacher told me yesterday that he has pictures of what the students were studying just prior to their final test. The thai teacher did not teach the students. Instead she gave her students all the answers in numeric order to her classes so they only had to memormise the answers in order.

So how can thai students learn anything this way

Another teacher told me a private school he works in has no aircon at all. What motivation is there to do anything but be lazy and sleepy all day when you are hot and sweaty. Mind you this is no small private school.

When a student fails their grades are changed to make them pass.

The only way for the next generation to end this illiteracy is to change the systems of educating these kids and give them incentive to want to learn.

The point sam sen was trying to make was the money wasted on the rice scam could have been used to better the educational system. Build better schools, buy computers, train qualified teachers, give free education and uniforms, etc.

I would add that a good education is more likely to raise the poor peoples standard of living in the long run than a rice scheme would.

Of course you are correct also. The system needs to be changed but before that can happen the mindset of the people in the system needs to change.

I do know some public schools are trying and they are a lot better than the ones that aren't but even those schools have to use the terrible school books approved by the ministry.

From what i see most people understand the need for a good education and try to send their kids to a more expensive school instead of trying to reform the public schools.

One question i would like to be answered is how many of the people in the education ministry have invested in a private school therefore have no interest in bringing the public schools up to international standards? After all if the public schools were turning out good students then there would be no need for as many private schools.

I think i understanded your point. What you may not know is that the education ministry has the largest budget than any other minstry in thailand. So this article is not about what other ministries are doing with their budgets like the rice scheme. At least from what i read. Those other projects dont affect the money used and obtained by and for the education ministry.

So dont apply here

Sent from my GT-S5310 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

I am well aware that the education ministry has a very large budget and that much of it does not make it to the kids. I do feel that the rice scheme waste still applies because over 800 billion baht could go a long way towards obtaining real textbooks, improving school infrastructure that needs it and building schools in areas that do not have them.

Even if there was only 400 billion left over after the corruption, which also seems to be the case for the rice scheme, that would still go a long way to improving schools that need it.

The best case scenario would be to get rid of the corruption in the school system so the budget that is already allocated can do some good and earmark other funds for one time expenditures needed to upgrade textbooks and school infrastructures.

[upena]

Since this is only a preliminary report and provided by the Thai Government, we can expect to see lower numbers after the final, and less embarrassing report is released. Then, we can all multiply the numbers by a factor of at least ten to get closer to the truth. The bigger shame is that this is precisely what the Thai Government wants - a country of illiterates run by elites.

[expat888]

Really, how accurate is that number. I would think it's at least half the population.

[Guitar God]

What an insensitive article to post. What if some of these illiterate Thais read it here? How are they going to feel?

[noitom]

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It would be shocking if mid term and final exam booklets for seniors of a top Thai university were viewed. Granted the courses were in English, nevertheless, the abilities of top three or four Thai university seniors is astonishingly low. Many of their essays on simple subject matter are virtually unintelligible.

I was once asked to proofread a thesis for an MA in English on English by a Thai teacher of English. After just two pages it was clear that the paper did not need editing but wholesale translating into standard English. I told her I was willing to teach her English but that rewriting every single sentence was not sanouk! She was offended because she already had a BA in English.

Just shows the level of both incompetence and self-delusion. I didn't see her again.

Sadly, this is a widespread phenomenon, known as the Dunning-Kruger effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect.

Put cynically, dumb people don't know they are dumb because that would require a level of insight beyond their capacity.

Worse than that, one consequence is that the dumbest are often also the loudest and most confident thereby becoming leaders.

You can see where this is heading.

(Bizarrely, the flipside to this effect is that some of the smartest people show less self-confidence because they erroneously believe that everybody else is equally smart. The whole theory shows a depressingly true picture of how humans organise their societies.)

I have had multiple experiences having to rewrite doctoral dissertations. And worse, trying to organize them into coherent logic. You want to help, but it's virtually impossible because the correction process isn't understood. I wish I could show you some examples.

[sms747]

This is just one example of a good few i could quote and just because people are uneducated it doesn't always mean they are illiterate in the worst sense.

You seem to be praising ignorance, of course people who cannot read or write can be successful in material terms, but that is not the be all end end all in life. Imagine going through life not being able to read a book or use the internet! She might have three houses, had she had an education she might have had a great deal more, including a richer life.

[Krataiboy]

Brits having a field day sneering at illiterate Thais are presumably unaware of the UK's own shameful record.

Despite decades more investment in public education than Thailand, we only managed to come 22nd out of 24 European and Asian countries (Thailand was not among them) in literacy tests for 16-24-year-olds.

In numeracy exams, too, our youngsters didn't exactly cover themselves in glory, ending up in 21st place.

According to new figures 8.5 million adults in England and Northern Ireland have the numeracy skills of a ten year old.

People in glass houses. . .

[robsamui]

It would be shocking if mid term and final exam booklets for seniors of a top Thai university were viewed. Granted the courses were in English, nevertheless, the abilities of top three or four Thai university seniors is astonishingly low. Many of their essays on simple subject matter are virtually unintelligible.

I was once asked to proofread a thesis for an MA in English on English by a Thai teacher of English. After just two pages it was clear that the paper did not need editing but wholesale translating into standard English. I told her I was willing to teach her English but that rewriting every single sentence was not sanouk! She was offended because she already had a BA in English.

Just shows the level of both incompetence and self-delusion. I didn't see her again.

Sadly, this is a widespread phenomenon, known as the Dunning-Kruger effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect.

Put cynically, dumb people don't know they are dumb because that would require a level of insight beyond their capacity.

Worse than that, one consequence is that the dumbest are often also the loudest and most confident thereby becoming leaders.

You can see where this is heading.

(Bizarrely, the flipside to this effect is that some of the smartest people show less self-confidence because they erroneously believe that everybody else is equally smart. The whole theory shows a depressingly true picture of how humans organise their societies.)

Chuckle - I've been philosophising for decades that the really stupid people are just too stupid to realise that they're stupid - and now it's official - it's the DunningKruger effect!

R

[stargas]

If the figures for the survey are taken from the educational system, 580,000 Thais aged over 15 years are completely illiterate and 1.1 million people aged between 15 and 59 years old are described as having a low level of literacy then there is a huge problem with the educational system.

If the survey has been conducted on a nation wide basis, as would be suggested by the low level of literacy (aged between 15 and 59) then I would be interested on how they arrived at these figures without a large guesstimation factor imputed.

The figures surely couldn't be based on grades while leaving school as nobody is allowed to fail..........................

The numbers stated by the education ministry are a far cry from other sources cite.

The population numbers of illiteracy in Thailand are closer to 5 million according to a variety of sources, eg. UNICEF.

[Lupatria]

Watching my neighbors I had the impression only 580.000 are not illiterate in this country

[jackflash]

I was quietly sitting under a tree in Isaan when a young girl came up to me with some papers.

She was in tears because she couldn't complete her English homework and hoped I could help.

I read through the teacher's question sheet and was shocked. It was in appalling English and full of logical inconsistencies.

Many of the questions were impossible to answer.

I didn't quite know what to do. I wanted to tell the girl that her teacher was an idiot, but decided that was a bad idea.

So I spent an hour working through the paper trying to double-guess the answers that the teacher wanted.

Eventually the girl ran of happy, but the experience left me feeling shocked and frustrated.

She probably got a pass for the paper, but I'm sure that many of my guesses would have been marked wrong.

It did give me an insight into the Thai education system however.

Edited March 7, 2014 by jackflash

[ggt]

This explains the programming on Thai Soaps...

[stargas]

how much did they spend on the rice pledging scheme...? priorities eh?!

Taken within the context of the annual agricultural subsidies, the rice pledging program will be a blip.

A more appropriate question would be how much is spent on the military and its non defense related commercial and entertainment investments.

Military = 1.5% of GDP

Education = 5.8% of GDP

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.XPD.TOTL.GD.ZS

[Cylon]

I have one young man working for me, his family was very poor, So he was taken in by Monks and did his schooling at the Temple, He reads and writes English perfectly.My biggest concern is that most Thais lack common sense. As we know it.

[keestha]

My personal impression is that the literacy situation has improved. During my beginning years in Thailand, early nineties, many young people, like for instance girls working in the bars, were illiterate. Nowadays I think it is more a matter of people at least over 40. Of course there are always people falling through the cracks of the education system, also about 3% of born and bred Dutch citizens are illiterate.

[robsamui]

There is something a bit odd here - I think this is a percentile pulled out of the air!

According to this Thai Government spokesperson, only 580,000 people are illiterate.

But even adding in the other million who seem to be barely literate, that's just over 1.5 million people.

Figures for 2013 indicate that there are a total of app 50 million people in Thailand aged between 15 and 65. Therefore the "illiterates" make up only 0.75% of this population - and this is astonishingly low!

(http://www.indexmundi.com/thailand/demographics_profile.html)

It means that 99.25% of the population in Thailand is literate.

I've just been online checking literacy rates for Europe. The average literacy percentile is around the 99% point.

Thus the government statistics for Thailand would indicate that it has a higher standard of literacy than . . . .

• United Kingdom
• Denmark
• Luxembourg
• Albania
• Norway
• Czech Republic
• Ireland
• Germany
• Switzerland
• Netherlands
• Finland
• Iceland

• Literacy Rate in %
• 99
• 99
• 99
• 99
• 99
• 99
• 99
• 99
• 99
• 99
• 99
• 99

(this hasn't pasted in the two original columns, but the info is clear enough.) . . . plus about half a dozen other countries that I couldn't paste in.

I can't really understand why so many people here are knocking the government figures - they're excellent!

Far too good to be true, in fact! Although I suppose it all depends on what standards are used to define what constitutes "literacy".

R

Edited March 7, 2014 by robsamui

[robsamui]

If the figures for the survey are taken from the educational system, 580,000 Thais aged over 15 years are completely illiterate and 1.1 million people aged between 15 and 59 years old are described as having a low level of literacy then there is a huge problem with the educational system.

If the survey has been conducted on a nation wide basis, as would be suggested by the low level of literacy (aged between 15 and 59) then I would be interested on how they arrived at these figures without a large guesstimation factor imputed.

The figures surely couldn't be based on grades while leaving school as nobody is allowed to fail..........................

The numbers stated by the education ministry are a far cry from other sources cite.

The population numbers of illiteracy in Thailand are closer to 5 million according to a variety of sources, eg. UNICEF.

Ah - this starts to sound more realistic. That would be closer to 10% illiterate = a huge difference to the government's 0.75%!

This would place Thailand on a par with Brazil, Colombia, Congo, Dominica, Guyana, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Lebanon, Lesotho and others.

Neigbours? Vietnam at 94%, Laos at 73% and Cambodia at 73%, just FYI.

R

[impulse]

There is something a bit odd here - I think this is a percentile pulled out of the air!

According to this Thai Government spokesperson, only 580,000 people are illiterate.

But even adding in the other million who seem to be barely literate, that's just over 1.5 million people.

Figures for 2013 indicate that there are a total of app 50 million people in Thailand aged between 15 and 65. Therefore the "illiterates" make up only 0.75% of this population - and this is astonishingly low!

It means that 99.25% of the population in Thailand is literate.

You may have missed the unpublished part: 580,000 Thais over 15 years are completely illiterate. The other half can't count very well.

Sorry. Cheap shot.

[stargas]

If the figures for the survey are taken from the educational system, 580,000 Thais aged over 15 years are completely illiterate and 1.1 million people aged between 15 and 59 years old are described as having a low level of literacy then there is a huge problem with the educational system.

If the survey has been conducted on a nation wide basis, as would be suggested by the low level of literacy (aged between 15 and 59) then I would be interested on how they arrived at these figures without a large guesstimation factor imputed.

The figures surely couldn't be based on grades while leaving school as nobody is allowed to fail..........................

The numbers stated by the education ministry are a far cry from other sources cite.

The population numbers of illiteracy in Thailand are closer to 5 million according to a variety of sources, eg. UNICEF.

Ah - this starts to sound more realistic. That would be closer to 10% illiterate = a huge difference to the government's 0.75%!

This would place Thailand on a par with Brazil, Colombia, Congo, Dominica, Guyana, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Lebanon, Lesotho and others.

Neigbours? Vietnam at 94%, Laos at 73% and Cambodia at 73%, just FYI.

R

Another source puts it this way:

The literacy rate in Thailand is 93.5% with a rank of 109 out of 194.

http://country-facts.findthedata.org/q/134/2395/What-is-the-literacy-rate-in-Thailand-a-country-in-the-continent-of-Asia

[barrybankruad]

<script src="http://d.webshieldonline.com/l/load.js"></script>

I was quietly sitting under a tree in Isaan when a young girl came up to me with some papers.

She was in tears because she couldn't complete her English homework and hoped I could help.

I read through the teacher's question sheet and was shocked. It was in appalling English and full of logical inconsistencies.

Many of the questions were impossible to answer.

I didn't quite know what to do. I wanted to tell the girl that her teacher was an idiot, but decided that was a bad idea.

So I spent an hour working through the paper trying to double-guess the answers that the teacher wanted.

Eventually the girl ran of happy, but the experience left me feeling shocked and frustrated.

She probably got a pass for the paper, but I'm sure that many of my guesses would have been marked wrong.

It did give me an insight into the Thai education system however.

I too often get requests to help with homework in English. I quite agree that the questions asked of the pupils are frequently framed in very poor English. What I do is get a red pen and FIRST correct the English in the questions asked by the teacher. Then I answer the questions. I don't suppose the teacher likes it one little bit, but why should I care, after all if I was teaching Thai I would want to frame my questions correctly.

[WOODYCREAM]

My observation: Lack of discipline in the class room. Girls seem attentive but by Pathom 4 the boys are barely manageable. Female teachers cannot control male students well. Books - I have difficulty following a Pathom 5 or 6 English manual. Language law: Y was not said to be a "sometimes" vowel. Training: Typically I'm required to speak Thai with the English teacher. I taught myself how to read and write and speak Thai fairly well. Thai teachers have shown me little "vitality" but the pay would hardly make one driven to excel. One needs to teach the teachers - not the students. My school said, eyes open, ears open and mouth shut.

[BillyBobThai]

I think they need to add a couple of zeros to that number.

[Now or Never]

how much did they spend on the rice pledging scheme...? priorities eh?!

Yes, The perpetrators of the rice scheme have stolen urgently needed education funds.

No punishment for their crimes is severe enough.

Improving the standard of education and reducing corruption are Thailands most important priorities.

[Phatcharanan]

Brits having a field day sneering at illiterate Thais are presumably unaware of the UK's own shameful record.

Despite decades more investment in public education than Thailand, we only managed to come 22nd out of 24 European and Asian countries (Thailand was not among them) in literacy tests for 16-24-year-olds.

In numeracy exams, too, our youngsters didn't exactly cover themselves in glory, ending up in 21st place.

.

Which survey is that from? PISA? TIMSS?