Thai editorial: Providing more teachers isn't the answer in the South

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EDITORIAL
Providing more teachers isn't the answer in the South
The Nation

Students in our Malay-speaking provinces need bilingual education that respects their distinct cultural identity

BANGKOK: -- Deputy Education Minister General Surachet Chaiwong has launched an interesting project to send teachers to provide extra tuition to students in the violence-afflicted southernmost provinces.

The project will also offer lessons via video to Mor 6 students in the region, which is supervised by the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre and the Region 4 Internal Security Operations Command (Isoc).

The idea is to give them as much chance of reaching college or university as students elsewhere, by preparing them for demanding entrance exams.

Sending extra teachers to help the kids make it to university has been tried before. But, like many initiatives aimed at improving life in the Muslim-majority border provinces, there has been no continuity or strategic direction.

Annual test scores of students from this region have for decades been the lowest in the country, so lending them a helping hand sounds like a good idea. The idea is that we can't afford to leave any particular region behind if we are to move forward as one nation with a shared destiny.

It's a sound notion, but it fails to address the deeper reason behind the low scores in southern schools. The students are struggling because they are being judged according to educational benchmarks set by the central government, which do not take into account the socio-cultural differences between the predominantly Malay-speaking region and the rest of the country.

There are probably just any many people with university degrees in the far South as there are in any other region of Thailand, but their degrees are mainly from Arab or Malay-speaking countries. The Thai establishment tends to regard these degrees as substandard, which explains why many of the holders are unable to find jobs elsewhere in the country and instead opt to work in Malaysia or Indonesia or simply remain in the South.

However, the problem goes far deeper than Patani Malay graduates' trouble finding jobs. It starts with the fact that, for most, Thai is not their mother tongue. Hence they are at a disadvantage as soon as they start school, where rules demand they use the central Thai dialect.

If Thais are serious about not leaving the residents of these provinces behind, we have to implement bilingual education there.

We also have to acknowledge that the ongoing separatist insurgency is rooted in a Patani Malay cultural identity that is distinct from the rest of the country. Our policy of assimilation has not just failed but backfired, by creating conditions for the rise of violence that has claimed more than 6,000 lives since 2004.

Yet our policymakers still can't make the connection between the conflict and a heavy-handed assimilation policy that Patani Malays feel ignores and overrides their cultural and religious roots.

Compounding the failed bid to turn the Malays into something they are not is the fact that the central government has neglected to send our brightest and best talents to oversee the region. For years the deep South has been a dumping ground for bureaucrats with questionable backgrounds.

Moreover, if we are serious about reconciliation between disaffected residents and state authorities, we need to go beyond education and address issues like equality and social mobility in the South. The vast majority of the bureaucrats there are Buddhists drawn from other parts of the country. Combine this with 60,000 or so armed security personnel, and it's no wonder so many Muslims residents feel as though they're living an occupied territory.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/Providing-more-teachers-isnt-the-answer-in-the-Sou-30251963.html


-- The Nation 2015-01-16

[Bakeman]

More special treatment for Muslims and more danger for Teachers. No thank you.

[Manbing]

Its just adding more wood to the fire when you think about it