Thai education: Three-tier strategy to tutor trainee teachers

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EDUCATION
Three-tier strategy to tutor trainee teachers
The Nation



Imminent retirements prompt search for suitable replacements

BANGKOK: -- The Thailand Development Research Institute has proposed a three-pronged strategy to improve teachers' quality and cope with a wave of teachers retiring in 15 years.

Supanat Sasiwuthiwat, a TDRI researcher, said last week that some 190,000 state schoolteachers would reach retirement age, so their schools had to select and recruit at least 156,000 teachers to carry the workload in the future. This was about 47 per cent of all teachers by 2025.

His estimate was based on teacher retirement statistics for 2013-17 from the Basic Education Commission and retirement projections for 2018-24.

As the hope for education reform would rest on the shoulders of new generation teachers, the government should carefully craft a plan to upgrade teaching standards by implementing the three-pronged strategy for personnel management, he said.

First, teacher recruitment has to answer schools' needs. The commission has a good chance to get able persons to be teachers. Some 100,000 people took the teacher exam last year, fighting for only 1,880 spots.

However, schools didn't have much say in the process to ensure the applicants matched their needs because educational area offices were the recruiters. Those who passed the written exam and interview would be put on a list. Those with a better ranking had first pick of schools.

There were also doubts over the teacher exam's quality, Supanat said. Only a short period was spent to prepare the tests, there was a lack of a quality database of exam questions and the exam questions were allegedly simplified to ensure enough teachers passed, he added.

Teacher recruitment must be of standard quality while exam questions must be kept in a database and the exam carried out according to a national standard.

Those who passed the standard score should be on the national list, so they could use their score to directly apply for teaching positions and schools could carry out additional testing as appropriate.

This method would allow graduates from other fields to take the teacher exam in the fields and areas in demand.

Those who passed the exam must get additional training before teaching in real classrooms.

Each university's education faculty should reveal its students' test scores so students could use that information in their decision to pursue higher education and the university could improve its teaching and learning quality.

Second, sufficient teachers should be allocated to students at each school. For example, 13,000 schools had suffered a shortage of 60,000 teachers while 10,000 schools had 21,000 teachers beyond their demands in 2010. The problem continued last year with 11,000 schools short of teachers and 10,000 with an overwhelming supply.

The Education Ministry's teacher allocation still emphasised teachers' volunteering rather than students' needs. Each educational area had teachers and an educational personnel subcommittee to oversee educational personnel management but some subcommittees would transfer teachers on a voluntary basis while the schools received personnel budgets according to the number of teachers. A rural teachers' allowance was only Bt1,000 a month. These factors contributed to the teacher shortage at rural schools.

Teacher allocation should be done according to students' demand, Supanat urged.

Schools should be allowed to hire new teachers as employees according the Education Ministry's formula based mainly on enrolment. These teaching staff should be provided a fair contract with career advancement according to their ability and performance.

Pay for rural teachers should be hiked and scholarships awarded to excellent students to learn how to become teachers in rural areas.

Third, working conditions and employment contracts should be boosted so teachers have better teaching quality and higher morale.

A 2014 survey found teachers spending 84 days - out of the 200-day academic year- in teacher assessment, academic competitions and training with outside agencies. Teachers' non-teaching burden should be lessened so that they could improve their teaching quality, he said.

The assessment for a teacher's salary and academic position based too little on his students' performance, he said.

Contract teachers - who generally earned Bt15,000 a month or less - also faced job insecurity as their one-year contract could be revoked when funds dried up or whenever the principal decided to let them go, he added.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/Three-tier-strategy-to-tutor-trainee-teachers-30252157.html


-- The Nation 2015-01-19

[lostinisaan]

Third, working conditions and employment contracts should be boosted so teachers have better teaching quality and higher morale.

More Thainess and better hitting techniques? Theory and reality is not the same. New hub of theoretical well- being.

Edited January 18, 2015 by lostinisaan

[timewilltell]

Teachers need to have knowledge of the subject, common sense and excellent training and testing on how to teach. Teachers need to be paid properly otherwise you will end up with what you have now which is not the cream of the population. Teachers need monitoring properly too by various means including student performance which should provide some link with pay.

However the bigger problem is the school administration which is stingy and unethical. Why should teachers behave professionally if the administrators are robbing the school blind at the expense of the kids and the teaching staff.

[lostinisaan]

Teachers need to have knowledge of the subject, common sense and excellent training and testing on how to teach. Teachers need to be paid properly otherwise you will end up with what you have now which is not the cream of the population. Teachers need monitoring properly too by various means including student performance which should provide some link with pay.

However the bigger problem is the school administration which is stingy and unethical. Why should teachers behave professionally if the administrators are robbing the school blind at the expense of the kids and the teaching staff.

They'll have to start at the top, which is usually the school director. School directors do not have to be educated people at all, because most of them just buy their positions.\

Parents "buy" a place for their kids to study. How can a country like Thailand spend most for educational purposes around the world?

How many teachers are on bought Master degrees, or the Thesis was written by a foreigner?

Start at the top first and get rid off the most corrupt school directors, with the license to abuse kids, parents' wallets and the ability to pocket huge sums of foreign teachers' salary.

But it seems that they only talk about things and nothing will change. The hub of corrupt and uneducated school directors

[smotherb]

This should not be an insurmountable problem. There are enough would-be teachers--exemplified by the 100k prospective teachers who sought the 1,880 positions. Poor quality teachers are better than none, and some who lack the teaching skills will gain it through practice--note the numbers of non-experienced, non-degree NES teachers who actually do make a difference.

First, the Thais have to make-up their minds to want to solve the educational problems and learn English; and that means not only lip service, but suitable funding and sticking to their plan--if not, full-stop.

Second, dumb down the teacher exams and grade on the curve, to amass more than the needed number of teacher-aspirants. Assign the aspirant-teachers where they are needed in large enough numbers to free-up qualified teachers to monitor them. Leave them as monitored teacher-aspirants until they prove themselves; at which time a change in title and an increase in salary should apply, perhaps other benefits such as a choice of school or a selection of subjects and other benefits may apply.

Third, develop English classes for Thai teachers not retiring within the next 15 years and all teacher-aspirants. Use NES teachers to instruct the Thai teachers and teacher-aspirants--use the overload in teacher-aspirants to fill classes to allow Thai teachers to attend English classes. Once proficient in English, a salary increase is in order, as well as other benefits should apply.

Fourth, as the numbers of Thai teachers and teacher-aspirants become English proficient, structure English-speaking classes for all subjects at upper pratum levels and beyond, so the students will learn subject matter and English in a more effective way. Encourage English language capability in teacher-aspirants as a fast-lane to teacher status.

Oh, why do I feel I have just wasted my time trying to address this issue logically?

[noahvail]

This should not be an insurmountable problem. There are enough would-be teachers--exemplified by the 100k prospective teachers who sought the 1,880 positions. Poor quality teachers are better than none, and some who lack the teaching skills will gain it through practice--note the numbers of non-experienced, non-degree NES teachers who actually do make a difference.

First, the Thais have to make-up their minds to want to solve the educational problems and learn English; and that means not only lip service, but suitable funding and sticking to their plan--if not, full-stop.

[snipped by responder] .........

Oh, why do I feel I have just wasted my time trying to address this issue logically?

Do you really have to ask? But I think you've come up with bloody good plan, I do. One hpoes the C-word doesn't enter into every stage of it if it's ever implemented, but TiT...

[cup-O-coffee]

Tutoring trainee teachers!?!?!

Amazing! The redundancy exists even in their (in)abilities to describe things.

[Scott]

I have to agree with LostinIssan. They will have to start at the top. I know some teachers who are excellent, however, if the Director has some crazy ideas, then that is what will be implemented. Remember when those higher up the ladder speak, everyone below must listen. No questioning.

As long as that is part of the culture, any reform will fail. It also means that the best and the brightest in the teaching field will seek employment elsewhere.

[Squeegee]

I have to agree with LostinIssan. They will have to start at the top. I know some teachers who are excellent, however, if the Director has some crazy ideas, then that is what will be implemented. Remember when those higher up the ladder speak, everyone below must listen. No questioning.

As long as that is part of the culture, any reform will fail. It also means that the best and the brightest in the teaching field will seek employment elsewhere.

Sadly your post is precisely why Thailand is doomed to decades more failure because to make such necessary changes they would need to revamp greng-jai and other aspects of Thainess that are currently too ingrained to allow daylight to break through.

Thailand either would need to go through a massive cultural change way beyond the mere bounds of education, otherwise it will be a long and painful process with little end in sight if any.

[lostinisaan]

I have to agree with LostinIssan. They will have to start at the top. I know some teachers who are excellent, however, if the Director has some crazy ideas, then that is what will be implemented. Remember when those higher up the ladder speak, everyone below must listen. No questioning.

As long as that is part of the culture, any reform will fail. It also means that the best and the brightest in the teaching field will seek employment elsewhere.

Thanks, Scott. A couple of moons ago, when I worked for a well known high school in lower north east, they had a director who abused young boys in his office and everybody knew it.

I taught M 6 at this time and had a lesson about proper/ improper behavior prepared for them. I even mentioned the school director's name in class and what he was doing, asking them what they thought about it. It wasn't a secret, as not just the students knew it, the whole town was aware of it.

None of them thought that this freak really misused his "power" and I had to come up with some examples related to them, that they started to think about it and were finally using "common sense."

I had to ask them how they'd feel if their sisters/ brothers would get raped by somebody to give them the right wake up call.

Some even said that they'd kill this person.....and they did change their view. Of course not all, as not all students are interested in learning English, as we all know.

Again, starting at the top would also mean to see some rolling heads at the MoE, the Khurusapha and plenty of Thai English teachers with Master degrees bought from a university, who couldn't even make an order at a McDonald's.

Okay, well, it's fair to me when non native English speakers who want to work as English teachers have to show their level of English in form of a TOEIC test.

But wouldn't it make perfect sense if Thai English teachers would also have to pass such a test with a minimum score of let's say 650, or preferable 750?

I made a seminar for Thai English teachers and they wanted me to teach them on one weekend to pass CEFR B 2 level, while most of them couldn't even say one whole sentence.

It seems that the new requirements will be changed to CEFR tests, which means much more to me, as grammar, sentence structure, etc.. is part of the tests.

Plus you can't "study" for the tests as there're always different questions. There's plenty of material to "pass" a TOEIC. ///

The criteria that somebody with a TOEIC score of 600, or below score is technically allowed to teach English, is a big joke. That's about the level of English a little kid has who grows up in an English speaking country.

Would a flight attendant need such a score of 600, okay and fair, as they mostly speak several languages, but don't teach them.

But as an English teacher? Not less than C 1, or C 2, or using the TOEIC score, not less than 800, even when they "only teach" subjects like science.

A TOEIC score of 600 minus is similar to a CEFR B ! level, which is unbelievable low.

Please see: http://www.examenglish.com/CEFR/cefr.php

Which finally leads me to my own personal conclusion: If the Thai English teachers' English is so damn low, how can they even teach kids the right answers of an O-net test?

I regret that I 'helped" a Thai colleague to "review" her Thesis for her Master's degree.

The "review" turned out that it was a re- writing of the whole bs text, as I couldn't even understand what she's trying to say. When I was asking her, she explained it all to me in Thai, which isn't really helpful at all.

I feel pretty much stupid now, as I'm also one of them who helps to receive something, they should never have.

If I could turn time back, I would never do it again.

Sorry for my long post. -

.

Edited January 19, 2015 by lostinisaan

[smotherb]

I have to agree with LostinIssan. They will have to start at the top. I know some teachers who are excellent, however, if the Director has some crazy ideas, then that is what will be implemented. Remember when those higher up the ladder speak, everyone below must listen. No questioning.

As long as that is part of the culture, any reform will fail. It also means that the best and the brightest in the teaching field will seek employment elsewhere.

That is why it has to be a Thai Department of Education mandated plan and has to be properly funded and monitored. No complicity, neither funding nor school license provided. The big problem; however, is the powers that be must want to correct the problem and be strong enough to ensure it is done. School administrators who break the law, or refuse to comply need to be punished. However, of course, TIT.

[smotherb]

Tutoring trainee teachers!?!?!

Amazing! The redundancy exists even in their (in)abilities to describe things.

Yes, they may call it an internship in some areas, an apprenticeship in others. However, what is wrong with continuous training for all professions, especially teachers?