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

[Wombat6]

yes because they copy the american schoolsystem!

If thats the case , no wonder they have trouble with English, Geography and the metric System.

[Phatcharanan]

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

The OP states that:-

".......................the findings were from a preliminary survey only.

We will need to develop standard tests to determine Thais' literacy. Relevant authorities should consult the National Institute of Educational Testing Service," she said.

[PeVee1st]

After reading most of the comments, I too believe in my experience that the number quoted is too low.

I think the number may be as high as 90%, most Thais I meet have none to very low english skills, even the ones that have passed Uni & TOEFL exams regularly make errors in writing & pronunciation.

As far as the bar girl analogy goes, they have limited english skills after asking the 4 questions associated with her "trade".

Most Thais have no idea about the world outside the borders of Thailand, even as far as knowledge of their closer neighbours.

Most bar girls will tell you Melbourne is in Australia, because it is part of her work knowledge, ask the probable next question, "where is Australia"?, and they usually say in Europe!!!

Aside from corruption, which is rampart in all areas of Thai society, the other problems I see is that Thais are underachievers who limit their ability to learn for fear of failure and are totally illogical, they cannot think "outside the box".

When I was working supervising Thais, I quickly worked out which employees were capable and challenged them to achieve, told them it was OK to make mistakes, but learn from the mistakes and not to repeat the error.

The workforce employed by my company improved as a consequence, because they did not fear making mistakes.

Lastly, I think the rich people of Thailand are happy the majority of the population is illiterate, if not then where would all the maids, gardeners, security, builders, road workets, etc. come from to do all the menial tasks. And of course where would all the bar girls come from to fuel the sex industry.

Sent from my GT-P7500 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[oztaurus]

Hardly surprising given the mentality of those running the country.......i thought the numbers would be higher.

The numbers are higher, the education official can't count ... It is actually 5,800,000

(Note: sarcasm. I have no basis for this figure - apart from experience with Thai education statistics)

[wolfmanjack]

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

Thailand had a GDP of THB11.375 trillion so the 800 billion would be about 7% of GDP?

So the military is about 170 billion baht per year?

That is not even close to the rice scheme is it?

[PepperMe]

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

They can be easily spotted as they all wear red shirts

Some can't even tell you what 'PDR Lanna' means...

.

Edited March 7, 2014 by PepperMe

[Gandtee]

Keep them illiterate and malleable. This is the way to get them to toe the line. The poor buggers can be led by the nose. Shame on this and past Governments for allowing this to happen. Shades of religions. Keep them brainwashed and they can be led anywhere.

[mojorison]

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. . .

Yes, but if you don't count the Irish, the number is actually about 20.

[mojorison]

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

They can be easily spotted as they all wear red shirts

Some can't even tell you what 'PDR Lanna' means...

.

BOING

[atyclb]

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.

Perhaps the tablet money would have been better spent on the

ConTest: A Smartwatch App for Collaborative Cheating

https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/amigi/cheating-on-exams-with-smartwatches/

[bangon04]

"People in this group could not use their reading, writing and arithmetic skills to answer questions, she said."

Duuh. That is because it is not part of the Thai curriculum......

[Jonmarleesco]

As if any further damning indictment of the state of the Thai education system were needed.

While Thailand spends some 20%-plus its budget on education, what I presume to be the World Economic Forum's most recent Global Competitiveness Report put Thailand at 83rd in terms of its “health and primary education”. Another report, on English language proficiency, had Thailand ranked a global 54th out of 56.

And with 'degrees' a must for all but the most menial jobs, employers continually encounter problems in hiring people with basic reading and writing skills.

But in a country so reliant on a feudal system of patronage, I hardly think politicians will be falling over themselves to put education front and centre of their party's manifesto.

[belg]

your daily taxi/bus/minivan/tuk tuk drivers/jetski operators

and off course, why would a farmer need to be able to read and write?

he only needs to be drinking & gambling, and watching the rice grow

[Jonmarleesco]

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

A permanent secretary is not, technically, a spokesman/woman for the government.

[chrisinth]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

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.

I was wondering why illetgrate, illitarate, illiterate is such a difficult word to spell...................

[draftvader]

Hardly surprising given the mentality of those running the country.......i thought the numbers would be higher.

They didn't know any more numbers!

[Varangkul]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

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.

I was wondering why illetgrate, illitarate, illiterate is such a difficult word to spell...................

If you think illiterate is difficult - try dyslexia!

Edited March 7, 2014 by Varangkul

[Dap]

Hardly surprising given the mentality of those running the country.......i thought the numbers would be higher.

I would guess the numbers are higher ... face and all

[BirdsandBooze]

After reading most of the comments, I too believe in my experience that the number quoted is too low.

I think the number may be as high as 90%, most Thais I meet have none to very low english skills, even the ones that have passed Uni & TOEFL exams regularly make errors in writing & pronunciation.

As far as the bar girl analogy goes, they have limited english skills after asking the 4 questions associated with her "trade".

Most Thais have no idea about the world outside the borders of Thailand, even as far as knowledge of their closer neighbours.

Most bar girls will tell you Melbourne is in Australia, because it is part of her work knowledge, ask the probable next question, "where is Australia"?, and they usually say in Europe!!!

Aside from corruption, which is rampart in all areas of Thai society, the other problems I see is that Thais are underachievers who limit their ability to learn for fear of failure and are totally illogical, they cannot think "outside the box".

When I was working supervising Thais, I quickly worked out which employees were capable and challenged them to achieve, told them it was OK to make mistakes, but learn from the mistakes and not to repeat the error.

The workforce employed by my company improved as a consequence, because they did not fear making mistakes.

Lastly, I think the rich people of Thailand are happy the majority of the population is illiterate, if not then where would all the maids, gardeners, security, builders, road workets, etc. come from to do all the menial tasks. And of course where would all the bar girls come from to fuel the sex industry.

Sent from my GT-P7500 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

The figure given is for illiteracy in their own language, not English.

[tetleythedog]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

While you're at it, could you add a section on logic to this standard test? Pretty please??

There is none ! The thing i would love to see here is an IQ test or a MENSA test, you could give them to 95 + % of the populace and we all know what the outcome wouls be. Even the 5 % would not do well. I gave 2 questions to my classes (1000+ kids), aged 14 to 17, i think 1 child got 1 answer, and the questions weren't that difficult.

[Moruya]

580,000....

Permitted to vote too no doubt but couldn't even spell sor por por

[Thai at Heart]

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. . .

Yes, but if you don't count the Irish, the number is actually about 20.

Of course that really wouldn't be an issue if the entire lot were adult pensioners.

There is always this astonishing issue that we brits continue to do so badly wit the developing world such as china doing so well.

Of course it could never be possible that a govt like china might jig the numbers for propaganda and the brits be reporting the absolute truth to encourage more effort?

Beyond that, of course having visited china, Korea and japan, it might also be said that these wonderfully talented kids might also have the social, language or arts talents of a 2 year old. Measuring maths is important.

But it isn't the he all and end all of education.

[rucus7]

This statistic plays well for the Shinawatra clan. Ignorance is easily manipulated.

[looping]

I wonder what percent of the entire Thai population lack the ability to think critically, to think beyond the here and now, to make inferences, or to think and indeed act in a proactive manner. I often wonder this.

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[Dave 74]

Just as well so many jobs obviously don't require reading ability.

As there is after all, 0% unemployment in Thailand.

[LeamchabangLarry]

Just wait until these poor kids acquire an attitude of entitlement and are injected into the workforce... Outlook: 15 years: Straight down below Burma and Cambodia for this country

Edited March 7, 2014 by LeamchabangLarry

[tilac2]

The elites in Siam (and that includes many of the farangs here) do not want the Siamese people to think for themselves. They just want to have a large number of semi-slaves who will bow down before them and work for tiny wages in factories, restaurants and coffee shops.

Although the farang elites pay lip-service to improving education, what they really want is what they have got right now - an education system that churns out subservient, obedient proles who will do what they are told.

Come on, tell me that I am wrong! Tell me that you, as a falang, want uppity think-for-themselves people!

You don't, right? You have come here to Siam/Thailand because you want to have your own personal slaves, and that's what you have got, and that's why you oppose the red-shirts and why you support the criminal Suthep. Am I right or am I right?

In my opinion there is only one decent future for Siam, and that is to utterly oppose the right-wing agenda espoused by the criminal Suthep, and to agree with the red shirts in saying that Siam needs absolute democracy, which will aim at greater equality.

In short, the country needs total transformation. Thaksin started the process: someone else, from the left-wing, needs to follow it through.

[wolf5370]

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 mentioned this before on other threads over the years - my wife's aunt had been teaching English at a university here for longer than I have known my wife (19 years). I can not understand her when she speaks to me in English, I she can not understand me however I grade my language. Yet she is teaching future English teachers. She can read and write English fine, but has no verbal or listening skills at all - there is no way she can teach English communication - any more than I could teach spoken Arapaho!

I taught here for a few years about four or five years ago - I am qualified, although I did need to take a TEFL for teaching EFL - which I did in a proper four week classroom based training (with 9m hours of in class teaching experience from KG to Uni). I taught in a college for over a year - teaching tourism and business English (even though my qualifications are for Maths and IT). Classes with over 60 student, clashes meaning that half the kids turned up 45 minutes late to a 2 hour lesson. Late afternoon classes, with fans and no air-con (thus sleepy students). A course curriculum way beyond their reach/level. A nightmare to teach. Other classes of 30 or so, is fine. Still have students that want to read comic, text their mates or sleep - but experience deals with that - and they soon learn what they can get away with and what they can't. Copying is rampant - lost books common too. Exams have to be made and a copy given for printing without answers and a copy provided with answers. Invigilating only allowed by Thai teachers - guess how many answers come back word for word as my given answers (even when they are example answers). A lot of reliance on multiple choice too. At the end of the course, the kids write a report on the teacher which goes to the supervising teacher (Thai teacher in charge of foreign teachers) - words/terms like "boring", "too hard", "not fun" can mean no contract the next term, regardless of results. Disruptive kids know they can get away with it, and cause problems for the teacher if s/he tries to control them in the normal ways (and I don't mean tazzing a four year old!).

[osiboy]

yes because they copy the american schoolsystem!

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

errrrr , like not being able to find Iraq on a map or thinking wales and scotland are in england ,.......hmmmmmm, not so sure about that , they are both very insular thats for sure !, ..............very "Bush-like"

Edited March 7, 2014 by osiboy

[Thaddeus]

The elites in Siam (and that includes many of the farangs here) do not want the Siamese people to think for themselves. They just want to have a large number of semi-slaves who will bow down before them and work for tiny wages in factories, restaurants and coffee shops.

Although the farang elites pay lip-service to improving education, what they really want is what they have got right now - an education system that churns out subservient, obedient proles who will do what they are told.

Come on, tell me that I am wrong! Tell me that you, as a falang, want uppity think-for-themselves people!

You don't, right? You have come here to Siam/Thailand because you want to have your own personal slaves, and that's what you have got, and that's why you oppose the red-shirts and why you support the criminal Suthep. Am I right or am I right?

Wow, you just described none of my friends.