Ending illiteracy needs proper innovative approaches, OBEC chief says

BANGKOK, 12 January 2015 (NNT) - The Education Ministry is expediting the eradication of illiteracy among Thai children under Prathom 3 (Grade 3) by using innovative approaches suitable for each student to achieve the country’s goal of making 2015 the illiteracy-free Year.

The illiteracy in children is still a serious concern in Thailand. Around 32,000 students in Prathom 3 can neither read nor write in Thai while 100,000 others have low proficiency in reading and writing skill, Mr. Kamol Rodkhlai, secretary general of the Basic Education Commission (OBEC) said.

He said that the ministry would require all of the students studying under Prathom 3 to take a literacy examination so that the ministry can identify the students with the problem and fix them before they pass to Prathom 4 to 6. Otherwise, they will lack enough proficiency to understand other subjects, resulting in low quality and success of basic education as a whole.

The main cause of illiteracy among Thai students is the teaching approach which centers on rote learning that better suits learning of other languages like Chinese and Japanese while Thai language has tone marks that require great practice from learners.

Mr. Kamol explained that rote learning has made students become dependent on a prepared stock of vocabulary and unable to do the manual tone marks and spelling. When they encounter an unseen word, they cannot read it and understand its meaning. Economic problems among immigrant and impoverished children are also main factors causing the illiteracy.

Mr. Kamol explained that unclear approaches previously applied to all students in Thailand were a waste of time and budget. He believed that the effective solution must come from a clear guideline which can precisely target only illiterate students and improve these individuals with proper innovative tools.

-- NNT 2015-01-12

First educate the teachers that are illiterate themselves or they don't give a damn about educating their pupils.

It will be a long process and could take years to see a good outcome and not just 2015

Unfortunately, in Thailand officials are very good identifying problems......as about fixing them...........it's another story that never happens.

According to the World Bank data, literacy in Thailand as of 2010 was 96%.

This is the 2nd misleading news article republished here regarding education in Thailand in one day.

From the OP: "The main cause of illiteracy among Thai students is the teaching approach which centers on rote learning that better suits learning of other languages like Chinese and Japanese while Thai language has tone marks that require great practice from learners."

Perhaps I'm missing something, but the dialects of both China and Japan are tonal.

I've used several Thai adults, quite literate in Thai and English, who are not teachers but quite good at assisting me with my Thai studies. However they invariably had trouble when I questioned them about tones - which tone was it that they used, the name of the tone mark, and especially the rules which govern tones when there is no tone mark. Maybe they did know them at school (although I doubt it - I have been in schools and seen how they operate) but if they did then, they sure as hell don't know it 20 or 30 years later.

Teachers on the other hand are better, if they have been language teachers.

It's tricky and I'm sure most Thai children don't to learn the tone rules initially because they already know the words. It's later on that it becomes important for them, but if you drop out at the end of Prathom then, well, no problem!

How about acknowledging dyslexia exists in Thailand too and do something to identify the sufferers and provide them with special teaching aid.

None of the many teachers I've met ever heard of dyslexia, while all of them consider children who can't read/write either stupid or lazy.

Tone rules? Only foreigners know them. The system foreigners use (which fits on the size of a credit card), is not the system Thais use.

From the OP: "The main cause of illiteracy among Thai students is the teaching approach which centers on rote learning that better suits learning of other languages like Chinese and Japanese while Thai language has tone marks that require great practice from learners."

Perhaps I'm missing something, but the dialects of both China and Japan are tonal.

chinese yes, japanese no.

in thai you have accents (tone marks) and rules for which letter + which accent = which tone.

to learn chinese you need to memorize the characters because even though most of them are combinations of other characters, there's no rule that can reliably predict the pronunciation, especially the tone.

when chinese characters are used in japanese it's normal for them to have multiple, completely unrelated pronunciations depending on the context, so again you need to memorize.

From the OP: "The main cause of illiteracy among Thai students is the teaching approach which centers on rote learning that better suits learning of other languages like Chinese and Japanese while Thai language has tone marks that require great practice from learners."

Perhaps I'm missing something, but the dialects of both China and Japan are tonal.

chinese yes, japanese no.

in thai you have accents (tone marks) and rules for which letter + which accent = which tone.

to learn chinese you need to memorize the characters because even though most of them are combinations of other characters, there's no rule that can reliably predict the pronunciation, especially the tone.

when chinese characters are used in japanese it's normal for them to have multiple, completely unrelated pronunciations depending on the context, so again you need to memorize.

Thank you for the clarification. ?

Yeah there are some parts of Thai which require rote learning, as some words don't follow the regular "rules" of Thai language (Often these are loanwords, but not always), but learning the rules helps a lot. Although how Thai people learn the rules, is often different to how we would when learning Thai, which is often why they can't explain it to us (Particularly as well, since I guess according to the article most did originally just learn via rote, and then maybe just worked out the tone rules for themselves).

I wonder what level of scrutiny they are applying to these 8 and 9 year olds, in regards to their reading/writing, as I know that when I was a kid in NZ, most of the kids in my class would have been making huge amounts of spelling mistakes when we were that age (Unless we constantly consulted a dictionary). Although we could all read, and I wouldn't be surprised if some 9 year old Thai kids couldn't read, so it might be reading which they're analyzing (Reading in Thai, is a little more difficult than in English though).

Stop passing on illiterate students to the next grade...

hmmm don't the tablet help?