Many score poorly in pre-O-NET exams

[webfact]

Many score poorly in pre-O-NET exams
The Nation

BANGKOK: -- The results of the national pre-O-Net (Ordinary National Educational Test) exam for students in the sixth, ninth and 12th grades yielded lower-than-average scores in maths, science and English, Office of the Basic Education Commission (Obec) said yesterday.

English scores were the lowest, while math and science were similarly poor, said Obec secretary-general Kamol Rodkhail. He did not give score figures in the latest pre-O-Net exam in November, nor the figures for previous tests to compare how much lower they were this time.

He said schools should improve teaching methods to ensure students can achieve higher scores in the coming O-Net exams - January 31 for sixth-graders, January 31 and February 1 for ninth-graders, and February 7 and 8 for 12th-graders.

Online tutorials for O-Net subjects are available on the Obec website www.obec.go.th as well as through recordings available at more than 20,000 government primary and secondary schools, Kamol said.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/Many-score-poorly-in-pre-O-NET-exams-30251366.html


-- The Nation 2015-01-07

[lostinisaan]

He said schools should improve teaching methods to ensure students can achieve higher scores in the coming O-Net exams - January 31 for sixth-graders, January 31 and February 1 for ninth-graders, and February 7 and 8 for 12th-graders

And Rome was built in three hours he added. - .

Edited January 6, 2015 by lostinisaan

[canuckamuck]

I bet they scored very high in copying and coloring inside the lines though.

Edited January 6, 2015 by canuckamuck

[arthurboy]

Same story as last year, the year before that and so on and so on ad nauseam.

Now let's take a look at budget spending for last year, curriculum content, teaching methods and teaching quality.

Oh wait...

[dcutman]

BANGKOK, Jan 9 – Thailand’s spending on education, representing 4 per cent of gross domestic product or 20 per cent of the national budget, is the highest in the world, according to research findings by Mahidol University.

The National Children and Family Development Institute which conducted the study on Thailand’s educational system concluded that spending on fundamental education is as high as Bt35,000 per person per year while parents have to pay on average Bt25,000-35,000 per student each year for added extras.

Despite the high expenditure, the country’s educational gap--the delivered performance--remains wide and in need of improvement.

Study hours for Thai students are five times more than countries such as the US and Canada where students spend 600-700 hours in classes while Thai students 2,000-3,600 hours. http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/695289-thailands-educational-spending-highest-in-the-world/

[kotsak]

This isn't news.. It would have been if they had scored well

[Pormax]

As long as they attend school most days then they will still walk away with their cerificates saying that they have finished High School.

Having a 16 year old neice of my wife living with us, all I see is copying from a book, with TV on and other people talking around her, or just printing stuff of the internet which is never read, but must be handed in to get a pass mark. She has less than 18 months before she wants to go to University yet most days of the week never has homework to do. I would suggest that that the level off education she is at now would be equivalent to a 13 year old's in the UK. What is more worrying though is the lack of common sense and being able to think for herself.

[Emster23]

English was lowest. As could be expected. Any proposals to have English speakers teach English? I am retired experienced career teacher from USA. Would be happy to donate a few hours a week at local school. Too many barriers, too much BS to be able to contribute. If I were to teach informally for free I could still be arrested for working without permit.

[outsider]

Low scores in English, Science and Maths. And these kids supposedly want to be doctors in the future (news from another post)? *shudders*

[Lupatria]

Nothing to worry here. They will all fulfill their dreams and become doctors with a little tea money and assistance from unusually rich teachers.

[ubonjoe]

A off topic post has been removed.

[gandalf12]

Look at the problem objectively. English speakers will never be able to adequately teach Thai and the same goes the opposite way around. What is needed are qualified native English speakers to teach English, anything less is just living in a dream world.

Science is the same. Lecturers at some of the big universities in Bangkok have stated they cant teach the new technologies as they don't understand them. Maths is a fundamental part of science so they go hand in hand.

The only realistic solution is to get qualified foreigners in to provide thee knowledge.

My daughter had problems with maths but being a degree qualified engineer I was able to help her in ways that made it easy for her to learn. Now she has no problems.

It all comes down to the right tools for the job and unfortunately most of the local teachers in Thailand are not the right tools

[Tuskfish]

Look at the problem objectively. English speakers will never be able to adequately teach Thai and the same goes the opposite way around. What is needed are qualified native English speakers to teach English, anything less is just living in a dream world.

Science is the same. Lecturers at some of the big universities in Bangkok have stated they cant teach the new technologies as they don't understand them. Maths is a fundamental part of science so they go hand in hand.

The only realistic solution is to get qualified foreigners in to provide thee knowledge.

My daughter had problems with maths but being a degree qualified engineer I was able to help her in ways that made it easy for her to learn. Now she has no problems.

It all comes down to the right tools for the job and unfortunately most of the local teachers in Thailand are not the right tools

Yes and No

In defense of the many quality Thai teachers I know... there are often far too many unplanned interruptions outside the classroom and sidelines administrative duties

My wife teaches the kids an extra hour in the afternoon in her own time because she is bloody sick of being told to stop her classwork to help with other things like going on unplanned excursions to the beach, scan/type a document for the principal because he doesn't know how, health insurance admin for families, local festival stalls etc.

She loses 10-15 hours a week because of distractions outside the classroom and what happens to the kids during that time? Who knows, her principal is a 'do it now this minute and ignore the kids' kind of guy.

Sadly, the reward for being a good teacher in Thailand appears to be so much extra work that it's almost impossible to maintain any focus on continuation and outcomes in the actual classroom!

Meanwhile a flight attendant gets paid double their salary to serve cokes and clean the toilet

Edited January 7, 2015 by Tuskfish

[gandalf12]

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

Look at the problem objectively. English speakers will never be able to adequately teach Thai and the same goes the opposite way around. What is needed are qualified native English speakers to teach English, anything less is just living in a dream world.

Science is the same. Lecturers at some of the big universities in Bangkok have stated they cant teach the new technologies as they don't understand them. Maths is a fundamental part of science so they go hand in hand.

The only realistic solution is to get qualified foreigners in to provide thee knowledge.

My daughter had problems with maths but being a degree qualified engineer I was able to help her in ways that made it easy for her to learn. Now she has no problems.

It all comes down to the right tools for the job and unfortunately most of the local teachers in Thailand are not the right tools

Yes and No

In defense of the many quality Thai teachers I know... there are often far too many unplanned interruptions outside the classroom and sidelines administrative duties

My wife teaches the kids an extra hour in the afternoon in her own time because she is bloody sick of being told to stop her classwork to help with other things like going on unplanned excursions to the beach, scan/type a document for the principal because he doesn't know how, health insurance admin for families, local festival stalls etc.

She loses 10-15 hours a week because of distractions outside the classroom and what happens to the kids during that time? Who knows, her principal is a 'do it now this minute and ignore the kids' kind of guy.

Sadly, the reward for being a good teacher in Thailand appears to be so much extra work that it's almost impossible to maintain any focus on continuation and outcomes in the actual classroom!

Meanwhile a flight attendant gets paid double their salary to serve cokes and clean the toilet

Agreed there are good Teachers but just not enough. The salaries they are paid is appalling and will not attract many top flight teachers into the profession.

Incidentally Flight attendants don't clean the toilets that is the cleaning crew who come on board when the passengers have left the aircraft

[Mr Somtam]

As long as they attend school most days then they will still walk away with their cerificates saying that they have finished High School.

Having a 16 year old neice of my wife living with us, all I see is copying from a book, with TV on and other people talking around her, or just printing stuff of the internet which is never read, but must be handed in to get a pass mark. She has less than 18 months before she wants to go to University yet most days of the week never has homework to do. I would suggest that that the level off education she is at now would be equivalent to a 13 year old's in the UK. What is more worrying though is the lack of common sense and being able to think for herself.

You describe my nephew's situation perfectly! Goes to school from 7 to 17 h. Does the copy paste thing BUT what does he actually learn? Can't point out africa or france on a world map, 5 x 23 = ... , english fahgetaboutit...

Really too bad but now he is already 12 years the mentality has already settled so small chance it will change for the better...

I like thailand and thai people but this education system is really bad

[Alan653]

I wonder if they were to test them for internet gaming,

that they would score 100%, since that's where they are

all the time!

DUH...ME PLAY GAME...

DUH...HOW TO SPELL DAWG?

[colinneil]

Low scores why? Because many good teachers are called away from the classroom to stupid seminars/ meetings to teach them how to teach !!

What a waste of time, leave teachers in the classroom teaching children.

How many times does a school have more teachers away than in the classroom. Too many.

Last term my wifes school ( 6 teachers) only 2 teachers at school ,others away learning how to teach.

They learn how to teach at teacher training college, but spend weeks every year doing it again. MEANWHILE CHILDREN ARE NOT LEARNING.

[zeichen]

"Look at the problem objectively. English speakers will never be able to adequately teach Thai and the same goes the opposite way around. What is needed are qualified native English speakers to teach English, anything less is just living in a dream world."

Absolute rubbish.

I was recently talking with some colleagues who have been doing a very lengthy study on this. Funny thing is there are 1000s of native english speakers hired in all schools around the country. 20 years ago and even 10 years ago students were scoring higher on their English proficiency exams for university than they are now but had primarily Thai teachers.

Is it because there are more native speakers that they aren't achieving the same scores? Yes in fact it is.

Some posters have made some valid arguments but primarily since most people commenting here don't actually know anything about education, assessments it is purely just smoke blowing.

Native speakers especially those with TEFL certificates especially the CELTA are to blame.

Before you get all defensive and stop reading further, calm down and relax.

These tests focus primarily on reading comprehension, writing and grammar. They do not have a listening or speaking section. Native speakers in the current trend of ELL focus on a communicative approach. I would argue that most students are much better at speaking English than they were 10 or 20 years ago. So that is a sucsess. Even 7/11 staff, mall cleaners, the guy who delivers kfc all have basic communicative abiltiy and they aren't highly educated.

We have changed the methods of our teaching and what we deem as more important but the tests are not aligned with these. The problem is that those that are created the assesments are not those that are in charge of the curriculum development or the trends in teaching.

Until there is a relationship between teaching methodology and assessment there will never be an accurate result. Kids are not any less hard working or any more stupid than years past. I know all of the above posters had perfect teachers and always did their homework and never did anything other than study but be realistic. Students today know more than you ever did at that age. And the majority of things that you learned in science or other subjects isn't even true today. The world has changed the needs of students and their future has changed. We don't need to memorize facts we can access them before students in the past could pass a note to the cute girl in the front.

To the degree qualified engineer. Hate to break it to you but what helped your relative was your involvement not your knowledge. Knowing engineering doesn't equate to knowing how to teach. But your involvement and support inspires the learner to try harder.

To all the ego driven teachers blaming the students or the system, realize that as a teacher your job isn't to impart knowledge it is to show students the path for them to access the knowledge on their own. In a class of 30 students you must realize that collectively they know more than you do.

[janpharma]

Look at the problem objectively. English speakers will never be able to adequately teach Thai and the same goes the opposite way around. What is needed are qualified native English speakers to teach English, anything less is just living in a dream world.

Science is the same. Lecturers at some of the big universities in Bangkok have stated they cant teach the new technologies as they don't understand them. Maths is a fundamental part of science so they go hand in hand.

The only realistic solution is to get qualified foreigners in to provide thee knowledge.

My daughter had problems with maths but being a degree qualified engineer I was able to help her in ways that made it easy for her to learn. Now she has no problems.

It all comes down to the right tools for the job and unfortunately most of the local teachers in Thailand are not the right tools

I 'm not a native English speaker but during the TEFL course that I took last year it seemed that my English was far better than some native English speakers...

[quandow]

This topic rears its ugly head on a semi-regular basis. Most of the time I ignore it, but today I am infuriated and must respond. I have worked at the largest private Thai school system for over four years, and today I handed in my resignation. We have a mid term exam to be given this Monday, and were told JUST today that the whole manner of grading and testing has to be changed. This is not due to the new Thai government administration, rather one very stupid but very powerful and mean-spirited cow deciding to stir up the pot. There is NO logic to her directives and we will have to flat out LIE about several tests that were given to our students over the last three months. Add to that, we've all had to reconfigure our tests at least TWICE because "she didn't think they were pretty enough." THIS is the kind of behavior that is KILLING the Thai school systems! Whew, I feel a little better after the rant and will REALLY feel great after ridding myself of this ugly place!

[siam2007]

" no worries, nobody will fail in the end. now stop learning and continue to play LINE and facebook" ;-)

[lostinisaan]

I bet they scored very high in copying and coloring inside the lines though.

And I'm pretty sure that they had very high boy scout marching marks, as well.

. But I bet that they do not have the ability to read between the lines, because they don't know what's written on the lines.

As a well- known fortune teller in Sisaket /Ubon area I'm certain that foreigners were the reason for the bad results regarding the English assignments.

It seems they need more restrictions for foreign teachers, way more "quality teachers" from Nigeria with a 399 TOEIC score, who sell ice on weekends, which can only be a win-win situation.

And they don't stop losing their faces, don't let the students fail and they don't let the students any questions.

My uncle who's the principal of a high school in Germany didn't even believe me.

He said that a school system that doesn't allow students to ask questions, already failed. No more to add, as they fail in almost all.

But they're so creative that they make nice looking boards at almost all schools all over this country. Thailand, the new hub of intelligent boards.......... ..

I've seldom seen one with some English bla bla on it, without a mistake, ( only those I'd checked,lol)

And if they're lucky and have enough Asian teachers, they let them make those unbelievable boards.

Am I really" too intelligent" that I see all their problems, or are they just "less intelligent?"

Now get back to work and don't act like you're busy and please don't confuse them with your speech. ASEAN knocks heavily on Thailand's doors.-

[culicine]

" no worries, nobody will fail in the end. now stop learning and continue to play LINE and facebook" ;-)

I think this is part of the problem, not just here but everywhere. 10 years ago, kids did not have line and were much less computer savvy. Now computers, line, facebook, ipads, have become a national obsession. Sure I use these things, like everyone, but as adults we learn to balance out. Kids have not learned this. Instead of doing homework they are playing on these gadgets - in educationally constructive ways. They are great learning tools but are often not used in the classroom for this purpose. Kids also know they can't fail, even after 5 retests, so are just cruising through life knowing very little. This has caused an upsurge in private universities who will take practically anyone with a pulse and m6 certificate (which they all get). Kids were a lot more hard working and responsible in 'our day' they they are now. I feel sorry for the future generations in this country. There needs to a complete seachange in the mindset of society regarding the value of education. I see no sigh of this happening anytime soon.

[Colabamumbai]

BANGKOK, Jan 9 Thailands spending on education, representing 4 per cent of gross domestic product or 20 per cent of the national budget, is the highest in the world, according to research findings by Mahidol University.

The National Children and Family Development Institute which conducted the study on Thailands educational system concluded that spending on fundamental education is as high as Bt35,000 per person per year while parents have to pay on average Bt25,000-35,000 per student each year for added extras.

Despite the high expenditure, the countrys educational gap--the delivered performance--remains wide and in need of improvement.

Study hours for Thai students are five times more than countries such as the US and Canada where students spend 600-700 hours in classes while Thai students 2,000-3,600 hours. http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/695289-thailands-educational-spending-highest-in-the-world/

Fails to mention that the 5 times more hours in class is necessary, since half of it is because they are on their I Phones or Facebook or just too busy talking to each other or eating, all more important than learning.

[Kf6vci]

Darn! How about improving the blasted test itself?!?

Can those bureaucrats do these bizarre tests themselves?!? I'm the first to admit that I'm stymied regarding many a question or task! Keep it relevant! There is more to a language than grammar and some weird form of logic.

[casualbiker]

"Look at the problem objectively. English speakers will never be able to adequately teach Thai and the same goes the opposite way around. What is needed are qualified native English speakers to teach English, anything less is just living in a dream world."

Absolute rubbish.

I was recently talking with some colleagues who have been doing a very lengthy study on this. Funny thing is there are 1000s of native english speakers hired in all schools around the country. 20 years ago and even 10 years ago students were scoring higher on their English proficiency exams for university than they are now but had primarily Thai teachers.

Is it because there are more native speakers that they aren't achieving the same scores? Yes in fact it is.

Some posters have made some valid arguments but primarily since most people commenting here don't actually know anything about education, assessments it is purely just smoke blowing.

Native speakers especially those with TEFL certificates especially the CELTA are to blame.

Before you get all defensive and stop reading further, calm down and relax.

These tests focus primarily on reading comprehension, writing and grammar. They do not have a listening or speaking section. Native speakers in the current trend of ELL focus on a communicative approach. I would argue that most students are much better at speaking English than they were 10 or 20 years ago. So that is a sucsess. Even 7/11 staff, mall cleaners, the guy who delivers kfc all have basic communicative abiltiy and they aren't highly educated.

We have changed the methods of our teaching and what we deem as more important but the tests are not aligned with these. The problem is that those that are created the assesments are not those that are in charge of the curriculum development or the trends in teaching.

Until there is a relationship between teaching methodology and assessment there will never be an accurate result. Kids are not any less hard working or any more stupid than years past. I know all of the above posters had perfect teachers and always did their homework and never did anything other than study but be realistic. Students today know more than you ever did at that age. And the majority of things that you learned in science or other subjects isn't even true today. The world has changed the needs of students and their future has changed. We don't need to memorize facts we can access them before students in the past could pass a note to the cute girl in the front.

To the degree qualified engineer. Hate to break it to you but what helped your relative was your involvement not your knowledge. Knowing engineering doesn't equate to knowing how to teach. But your involvement and support inspires the learner to try harder.

To all the ego driven teachers blaming the students or the system, realize that as a teacher your job isn't to impart knowledge it is to show students the path for them to access the knowledge on their own. In a class of 30 students you must realize that collectively they know more than you do.

I certainly agree with you to a point BUT most schools ONLY use their NES teachers for 1 lesson (maybe 2) out of the 4-5 that the students have for English. I think a larger problem is that Thai teachers and students just have much larger workload than is healthy. Added to that the constant cancellations etc and finally a test system out of touch with what's actually happening in the schools!

The Thai curriculum is disjointed and yet they have national testing on things that may never have been taught. I'm sure we all remember the football question from a few years ago!

[http://asiancorrespondent'>

The question most talked about this year appeared in the Health Education exam which M.6 students took just took on 19 February.

Q2: If you have a sexual urge, what must you do?

a) Call friends to go play football.

Talk to your family.

c) Try to sleep.

d) Go out with a friend of the opposite sex.

e) Invite a close friend to see a movie.

It could well be that the students are getting MORE intelligent than the test writer :-D

Other interesting stuff about ONET here : http://asiancorrespondent.com/76664/thai-education-part-1-ridiculous-o-net-questions/

Edited January 8, 2015 by casualbiker

[Tuskfish]

And here we go again.... no classes today or tomorrow because of childrens day preparation....

I don't have a problem with childrens day specifically, but yet another 2 full days of non-academic learning!!

I do value out of class learning activities although the balance here sways too far in the wrong direction in my view (which I suspect is because of laziness not intention).

Also, I've just watched an entire school of kids walking the streets apparently picking up rubbish which basically meant I now have more rubbish in my driveway than I did yesterday and the dog across the road got a rock to the belly for barking mildly inside his closed gate.

[IMA_FARANG]

Although this may make many English teachers here in Thailand angry in fact, many Thai students regard English as a secondary subject which is not really relevant to their future jobs here in Thailand.

I'm not saying I agree with that, but it is just what many Thais perceive about learning English.

That fact probably has a lot to do with their low scores in tests to measure their English capability ....... they feel it is not really important.

Until Thai students feel English is really important for their future, why should they put out the effort to learn English?

[lostinisaan]

English was lowest. As could be expected. Any proposals to have English speakers teach English? I am retired experienced career teacher from USA. Would be happy to donate a few hours a week at local school. Too many barriers, too much BS to be able to contribute. If I were to teach informally for free I could still be arrested for working without permit.

You'd be an asset to all educational institutions here in Thailand, but as you'd already pointed out, they seem to be too "unintelligent" to understand basic principles, nor do they have any common sense.

I'm working here now for ten years and the level of English hasn't increased at all. When I think back, I'm certain that kids' English was much better, before all the agencies sent their backpacking freaks to schools.

I had resigned my first teaching position at a nice Thai government primary school to work for an agency, as they paid 13 K more/month. But the native English speaking teachers they already had, were mostly uneducated people with a very bad command in their mother tongue.

One day we sat in our office and made jokes about how they're looking for their "teachers", when one Alaskan guy explained how they "found him." He lived on a roof, somewhere in Pattaya, had only one shirt and shorts. No more money, a pregnant girl friend, he'd met at a bar from Buri Ram, etc....

When a friendly guy bought him a beer which he drank at the beach, a Volkswagen van stopped at beach road, some guys approached him and immediately offered him a job as an English teacher.

The only fact that was important for them was that he came from an English speaking country. He couldn't even afford it to take a cab to get to their office in Bangkok and walked about 20 km. Jon, I hope you'll forgive me when you read this.

.

He started two days later at a well- known high school in Sisaket. When he came back from his first "lesson", he's really asking me, how I'd spell Wednesday?

I thought it was a weird joke, but then it turned out that he wrote: Wedsday on the board, when the kids started jelling: Teeechaaa...noooooo he didn't listen and kept his misspelled word as it was.

There're so many retired native English speaking people like you, who'd love to help them teaching, as most Thai English teachers can't even have a simple conversation with you.

So how can you learn English from somebody who can't speak it properly? It just doesn't work and the agencies with their "quality teachers" do the rest.

I'm pretty certain that you'd love teaching, once you've seen how the kids really are. The kids are really nice and innocent. Until their brains get damaged from Thai teachers, plus the physical abuse.

There's no light at the end of the tunnel. Not even a tiny one. Nil.

[Pormax]

Although this may make many English teachers here in Thailand angry in fact, many Thai students regard English as a secondary subject which is not really relevant to their future jobs here in Thailand.

I'm not saying I agree with that, but it is just what many Thais perceive about learning English.

That fact probably has a lot to do with their low scores in tests to measure their English capability ....... they feel it is not really important.

Until Thai students feel English is really important for their future, why should they put out the effort to learn English?

I agree with you.

There is so much made of the Asean community for 2015 but the children of ages 16/17 do not have a clue what it is all about.

One of the main things about the Asean Community which should be emphasised to the children by the schools, is that the English language has been declared the Asean Community common language.

However when the vast majority of teachers know little or any English then it is understandable that the children do not take the subject seriously.

Incidentally I will give you an example how well people in Thailand who have finished university can read/understand English.

I was referred from one private hospital to another. I took with me the paper the Doctor gave me stating that a Cystoscopy was done and a tumour was found in my bladder.

That it was thought to be CA (Cancerous). A picture was also shown giving the sight of the tumour.

I presented this to the nurse on arrival, who then showed it to another nurse who after a few minutes passed it on to yet another nurse.

I was then told to sit and wait in an area for the doctor. When I did get to see the doctor I was told that you should not be seeing me as I only deal with Gastric problems not urinary tract problems.

So three nurses could not read normal medical terms. I might add that when asked, I told them that I had no pain but have a lot of blood in my urine for over 4 weeks. This was also told in Thai by my wife.

While I stayed in hospital for the removal of the tumour not one of the many nurses who looked after me could speak to me in English.

Medical terms are known throughout the world in English, so what if any English was taught to these nurses?