Military precision is just what Thai education needs

[webfact]

EDITORIAL
Military precision is just what Thai education needs
The Nation

Successive governments have failed the test of education reform; can the Prayut administration return order?

BANGKOK: -- Just as the public was beginning to question the government's will to reform education, Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha announced a task force to spearhead an overhaul of the system. Taking the helm as chairman of the so-called education superboard, the prime minister says major change is needed to address years of under-performance despite huge budgets.

Composed of high-ranking officials and economists, the superboard met for the first time last week. It has been tasked with proposing new policies and ensuring that agencies work towards the same goals together. Its task force will oversee the new policies' implementation and follow-up on the fresh education blueprint. Prayut is hoping the new working group will cut through red tape and other obstacles to implement change speedily.

He is not alone. The public has been waiting a long time for real impact from education reform. The arrival of a task force led by the prime minister is a hopeful sign, following years in which Thai education has lacked direction. Without a clear target of what we have to achieve when it comes to education, Thailand has fallen behind its regional neighbours. Different agencies work in isolation and are subject to constant changes of rules and regulations. With each new government have come new policies and goals, destroying any continuity of action or planning.

Soon after coming to power, General Prayut announced that Thai students were suffering too many hours of study, which left them no time to develop outside the classroom. The Office of the Basic Education Commission then seemed to contradict that claim by saying students were spending too much time on extracurricular activities. Though the intentions may have been good, Obec's intervention likely caused confusion and left teachers as well as students lacking a clear direction.

Previous governments have flunked the test of education reform with a series of mistakes. There has been much talk of improving areas such as English teaching in preparation for this year's regional integration under the Asean Economic Community. But none of the proposals has had a concrete outcome. The reality is we will find it almost impossible to achieve anything of substance until the governments can decide on our ultimate goals for education, and stick to them. In the absence of such fundamental benchmarks, students and teachers are left struggling with inconsistency and frequent change.

If this government wants to improve the quality of Thai education, the first priority is to examine whether its current shortcomings are down to a lack of good policies, to poor implementation, or to both. At first glance, the education superboard offers hope of progress. Its goal to synchronise education management at different levels and ensure it is in line with the national economic and social development plan seems like a good one. But we have seen the same goal set out by each preceding government.

Rethinking policies and trying to come up with better ones is a good start, but without effective implementation it won't lead anywhere. The superboard must first learn from the mistakes of its predecessors, before laying out its plans clearly. Each policy should come with a time frame for implementation plus a plan of evaluation.

With no time frame, policies are likely to peter out into well-meaning action and ideas with little impact. The superboard has to bear in mind that education reform is a long-term investment. More important, it must find a way of ensuring that future governments stick by a single blueprint. Otherwise Thailand's education system will simply return to Square One with each change of administration, as it has been doing for decades now.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/Military-precision-is-just-what-Thai-education-nee-30256709.html


-- The Nation 2015-03-25

[NongKhaiKid]

Task Force, Super Board, Spearhead Reform. Just more talk and a lot more fine talk coming but will anything be achieved where so many others have failed and it doesn't matter that Super PM is in charge.

All the possible reform processes in the world can be arrived at but the stumbling block will be, as always, IMPLEMENTATION. There will be opposition, an unwillingness within the educational system to implement change and the usual lackadaisical attitude.

Better just stick to talking, it's so much easier.

[zydeco]

Military "precision" for education? Turn all the schools into barracks based arenas where rote memorization of manuals is the norm? I thought that is what Thailand already had.

[BSJ]

The funny stuff is flowing this morning!

[jerojero]

For the sake of the country's future, I hope at least some reform happens. Or it's a steady decline while neighboring countries pass them by! It's a daunting task no doubt!

[greenchair]

They say it best,when they say nothing at all.

[Godders]

And this from a leader who has kids chanting a Thai core values mantra every day, marching round singing patriotic songs and having their brains thoroughly washed of all creative and challenging thought. The mind (yes, I still have one as I was not educated in Thailand) boggles.

[JAG]

More marching, chanting and saluting no doubt.

A few weeks ago the TV was showing girl guides goose stepping around a sports arena for goodness sake!

That sort of military precision is the last thing education needs

[kaorop]

Dear General if it has been under performing for years, which is obvious to all

then many at the top of MOE, TCT, OBEC etc must be replaced.

You simply cannot keep the same incompetent corrupt officials and expect a change for the better.

That is how reform works, you have the power, use it constructively and show you're serious.

Thank you for your consideration

[trogers]

There is only one way to improve and compete with other Areas countries, send your kids to study in Singapore's govt schools.

And you would be surprise. One school building caters to two sessions of students. Singapore do not spend their budget on bricks and concrete. They spend much of their budget on the quality of teachers.

[Rocketsurgeon]

The only remedy is to ship a few dozen grad students overseas, get their phds and study foreign systems. Return and head ALL relevsnt agencies that have already been streamlined. Remove anyone not throughly on board with education revolution. Raise salaries and working conditions and some benefit program for teachers. Finally, force new teachers to do two years in the provs befire taking a post in a big city.

Allow all foreigners on O visas with a bachelor's to teach conversational English at will. Any such person with any sort of prior indication path to teaching given license for conversational teaching. Any sort of prior credentials and or testing, etc...No Thai kulchur course for married persons or single persons with Thai children also on O visa.

Eliminate all waivers for conversational English. At worst, reduce to anually and allow up five. TCC to all before first day of work. Teachers MUST have bachelor's without excrption like Korea, Japan. Traditional majors only. No online or for profit schools allowed.

Eliminate agencies, all teachers apply, accepted and employed thru a pool cleared at ministry level. A teacher clears first, then goes find a job. All then is needed is for school to present contract to MOE. Everything needed is issued immediately and with zero hassle to school.

Schools are stuck with lots of bad foreign teachers, liberalizing the movement of teachers will allow the good teachers to move to better schools faster - or befire their waivers run out. Schools can dump the fat, lazy flotsam and dead wood. Agencies and bad teachers are running a game, both complicit. Schools will not be limited to a few preselected agency geniuses and prior short order cooks.

Im surprised at how many illegal teachers are still in the system. Govt really needs to crack down and should start at the best public schools in Bangkok and work backward. There should not be a single teacher in Thailand teaching without a degree. That is simply basic reform of the system - it is a mockery. Let this lot work as teacher's aids for 15k like the Filipinos. TOEIC 900.

Edited March 25, 2015 by Rocketsurgeon

[LuckyLew]

So where does this huge education budget go?

Just what Thailand needs is a military style education to produce more robot like students

[Your Thainess]

Another editorial penned by the junta themselves?

[SoilSpoil]

A look in the mirror is needed to revamp the education system. Self reflection, attribution, accountability, transparency, students' work ethics and criminal charges for corrupt school directors and officials. Easily done by 2020 on the Coptic Calendar

[mikiea]

And this from a leader who has kids chanting a Thai core values mantra every day, marching round singing patriotic songs and having their brains thoroughly washed of all creative and challenging thought. The mind (yes, I still have one as I was not educated in Thailand) boggles.

i see the future clearly, on every soi there will be a chinese factory sending their goods home. these sweat shops will employ millions on thai yuts whose brains have been stunted due to a "i feel good about myself" education. all the bosses will be chinese, all the thai goverment peeps will super rich, the skys will be black, all the street dogs will have lung cancer, the lush green will turn to beijing gray, and the west will be blamed for letting it happen :-)

[Suffinator]

Action is what is needed not more rhetoric on reform.

Start by testing every teacher and anyone that fails the tests should be sacked. Then move on to the administrators; look into their financial affairs and see how many are unusually rich and then remove them.

There's a problem with reforming the education system ... it's run by the corrupt and backed by the corrupt. Again Prayut talks about wanting Thailand to be like Singapore in a recent article and yet it's clear he hasn't got a clue who Lee was or what he did which was to first remove and punish the corrupt.

You could live to be a 1,000 years old and Thailand will still remain a developing country until it removes the corrupt and ineptness from the system and that's not going to happen anytime soon regardless of the number of task forces set up.

[quandow]

I have been working for the largest private school system in Southeast Asia for five years. This school MAJORS in military precision. We have marching every morning after assembly, we have marching competition, such precision has been implemented with fervor. We STILL have failing students that we have to grease up and squeeze through the goalposts of "passing." I've written this before - until we can give factual reporting on our students, the Thai school system will be a sham. I have a fellow teacher who had to give a passing grade on one of his student's final exam because said student erased a hole in the first page. Let me repeat - NO other worthwhile marks on his final exam, he couldn't even spell his NAME correctly, but he was given 50% on his final exam because he erased a hole in the first page! Until such madness stops, don't expect any other results.

[city]

Anybody thinking that the system will be reformed...dont hold your breath. Its about controlling the content of the curriculum not jailing Principles who steal millions from education everyday. Poor OINET scored are being blamed on many things but not the front line of Thai teachers and farangs. Schools are being forced to use Thai published books, even for English. Singaporean maths books are now a no no. General Gaff (one per day) will reduce core sujects at the expense of implementing is indoctrination of the Thai people. Nothing will change for the better

[Thai at Heart]

Subcontract it all to singapore

[wwest5829]

Military "precision" for education? Turn all the schools into barracks based arenas where rote memorization of manuals is the norm? I thought that is what Thailand already had.

h

Hey, it worked for Sparta! Course Sparta produced few if any of the philosophers, writers, liberal arts types produced by Athens. Costa?

[Srikcir]

What military precision?

Didn't Prayut already unleash his 12 Values to schools as mandatory learning? But he has been upset with the news media asking students to recite the 12 Values. Prayut was to exchange the Yingluck's regime plan for a tablet for every child in exchange for electronic white boards in each class. Then that never actually happened.

He complained there were too many teachers that made students lax so he wants more students assigned to teachers. He wants to tax tutorial schools that fill a quality deficit in public school education. He complains students spend too much time studying that somehow explains their low academic scores and encourages LESS class time.

The Junta has bounced so many ideas and unsubstantitive presumptions other than more funds should go towards schools to make a pinball game look more organized. If Prayut was leading a military parade in education reform, it would look like everyman for himself towards an exit than a uniform march in one direction.

[HiSoLowSoNoSo]

Just hope for the kids sake that is based on US military precision not Thai.

[doremifasol]

"The education superboard is composed of high-ranking officials and economists".

Huh???

[MilesofSmiles]

I have a fellow teacher who had to give a passing grade on one of his student's final exam because said student erased a hole in the first page. Let me repeat - NO other worthwhile marks on his final exam, he couldn't even spell his NAME correctly, but he was given 50% on his final exam because he erased a hole in the first page! Until such madness stops, don't expect any other results.

I'm having real trouble processing this.

An illiterate 17 year old made a hole in some paper, and he was given a pass mark?

What subject was the 'final exam' ? F**king nothing ?

[JAG]

The only remedy is to ship a few dozen grad students overseas, get their phds and study foreign systems. Return and head ALL relevsnt agencies that have already been streamlined. Remove anyone not throughly on board with education revolution. Raise salaries and working conditions and some benefit program for teachers. Finally, force new teachers to do two years in the provs befire taking a post in a big city.

Allow all foreigners on O visas with a bachelor's to teach conversational English at will. Any such person with any sort of prior indication path to teaching given license for conversational teaching. Any sort of prior credentials and or testing, etc...No Thai kulchur course for married persons or single persons with Thai children also on O visa.

Eliminate all waivers for conversational English. At worst, reduce to anually and allow up five. TCC to all before first day of work. Teachers MUST have bachelor's without excrption like Korea, Japan. Traditional majors only. No online or for profit schools allowed.

Eliminate agencies, all teachers apply, accepted and employed thru a pool cleared at ministry level. A teacher clears first, then goes find a job. All then is needed is for school to present contract to MOE. Everything needed is issued immediately and with zero hassle to school.

Schools are stuck with lots of bad foreign teachers, liberalizing the movement of teachers will allow the good teachers to move to better schools faster - or befire their waivers run out. Schools can dump the fat, lazy flotsam and dead wood. Agencies and bad teachers are running a game, both complicit. Schools will not be limited to a few preselected agency geniuses and prior short order cooks.

Im surprised at how many illegal teachers are still in the system. Govt really needs to crack down and should start at the best public schools in Bangkok and work backward. There should not be a single teacher in Thailand teaching without a degree. That is simply basic reform of the system - it is a mockery. Let this lot work as teacher's aids for 15k like the Filipinos. TOEIC 900.

A Bachelors Degree is I believe technically a requirement for licensing as a teacher in Thailand. That said I am not convinced that it is any way a guarantee that the holder will be a good teacher, nor that it is necessary to hold a degree in order to teach English as a foreign language. Practical ability, enthusiasm and eventually experience are at least as important. Certainly allowing all foreigners with a type O visa and a degree to teach"at will" will not do anything to raise standards in the profession, apart from anything else, whilst I have met some foreigners who are not native English speakers whose English is excellent, most don't speak good enough English to teach it.

I have to ask, have you applied for a post as a teacher, but lost out to either a native English speaker without a degree, or perhaps a Filipino? Have you been turned down by an agency?

Edited March 25, 2015 by JAG

[Rocketsurgeon]

The only remedy is to ship a few dozen grad students overseas, get their phds and study foreign systems. Return and head ALL relevsnt agencies that have already been streamlined. Remove anyone not throughly on board with education revolution. Raise salaries and working conditions and some benefit program for teachers. Finally, force new teachers to do two years in the provs befire taking a post in a big city.

Allow all foreigners on O visas with a bachelor's to teach conversational English at will. Any such person with any sort of prior indication path to teaching given license for conversational teaching. Any sort of prior credentials and or testing, etc...No Thai kulchur course for married persons or single persons with Thai children also on O visa.

Eliminate all waivers for conversational English. At worst, reduce to anually and allow up five. TCC to all before first day of work. Teachers MUST have bachelor's without excrption like Korea, Japan. Traditional majors only. No online or for profit schools allowed.

Eliminate agencies, all teachers apply, accepted and employed thru a pool cleared at ministry level. A teacher clears first, then goes find a job. All then is needed is for school to present contract to MOE. Everything needed is issued immediately and with zero hassle to school.

Schools are stuck with lots of bad foreign teachers, liberalizing the movement of teachers will allow the good teachers to move to better schools faster - or befire their waivers run out. Schools can dump the fat, lazy flotsam and dead wood. Agencies and bad teachers are running a game, both complicit. Schools will not be limited to a few preselected agency geniuses and prior short order cooks.

Im surprised at how many illegal teachers are still in the system. Govt really needs to crack down and should start at the best public schools in Bangkok and work backward. There should not be a single teacher in Thailand teaching without a degree. That is simply basic reform of the system - it is a mockery. Let this lot work as teacher's aids for 15k like the Filipinos. TOEIC 900.

A Bachelors Degree is I believe technically a requirement for licensing as a teacher in Thailand. That said I am not convinced that it is any way a guarantee that the holder will be a good teacher, nor that it is necessary to hold a degree in order to teach English as a foreign language. Practical ability, enthusiasm and eventually experience are at least as important. Certainly allowing all foreigners with a type O visa and a degree to teach"at will" will not do anything to raise standards in the profession, apart from anything else, whilst I have met some foreigners who are not native English speakers whose English is excellent, most don't speak good enough English to teach it.

I have to ask, have you applied for a post as a teacher, but lost out to either a native English speaker without a degree, or perhaps a Filipino? Have you been turned down by an agency?

You need not worry about me, I'm grad of top 75 univ in US.

Bachelor's degree is a bare minimum for managers job at McDonalds. A bare min for many sub 20k jobs here in Thailand, for Thais.

If you cant muster the personal fortitude to squeek out an Engrish, Mass Media or Sociology degree at a crappy state college you are lost.

How on earth can a school employ a teacher without a degree? Do you know a country that routinely hires degreeless teachers? Certainly not Japan, Korea, Taiwan, HKG, China, Vietnam or Indonesia. All of MENA, Europe and SA...

Let me guess, you have no degree. Its always this lot that whines and degrades the education (BA/S).

Oh, the irony. Teaching and educating, but no education. Oh that's right...you have life experience AND paid attention in HS forty years ago.

Bachelor's degree is the minimum starting point in life for any decent job and a lot of not so decent jobs.

It really doesn't matter what you think, Thai MOE, TCT think otherwise. They want a degree like all other countries outside Africa.

Non degree people feel free to stop gaming the system and return home. Big Box is hiring.

Edited March 25, 2015 by Rocketsurgeon

[JAG]

Actually I do have a degree, and a teaching qualification as it happens. I also have accumulated a considerable amount of "life experience" over the last decades. I must confess however that your'e right, I should probably have paid rather more attention in "HS", (high school?) forty years ago.

Reading your posts, with their mangled syntax and eccentric spelling, I am quite surprised that you are a graduate of one of the top US universities.Things must have changed since I spent time in the US.

All the Filipino teachers I know would do rather better!

Edited March 25, 2015 by JAG

[Chris Lawrence]

The test I would apply here is, 'would I send my child to a school designed by the General and the Happiness Board with emphasis on his 12 core values'?

[JAG]

And I am sure that the answer, as with me, is no.

The worry is that if they go through with some of these "reforms" all schools, private or government will be compelled to follow their wishes concerning "12 core values" and paramilitary antics. I suppose that in that case the only hope is that the rigour with which these instructions are followed may vary.

[SoilSpoil]

The only remedy is to ship a few dozen grad students overseas, get their phds and study foreign systems. Return and head ALL relevsnt agencies that have already been streamlined. Remove anyone not throughly on board with education revolution. Raise salaries and working conditions and some benefit program for teachers. Finally, force new teachers to do two years in the provs befire taking a post in a big city.

Allow all foreigners on O visas with a bachelor's to teach conversational English at will. Any such person with any sort of prior indication path to teaching given license for conversational teaching. Any sort of prior credentials and or testing, etc...No Thai kulchur course for married persons or single persons with Thai children also on O visa.

Eliminate all waivers for conversational English. At worst, reduce to anually and allow up five. TCC to all before first day of work. Teachers MUST have bachelor's without excrption like Korea, Japan. Traditional majors only. No online or for profit schools allowed.

Eliminate agencies, all teachers apply, accepted and employed thru a pool cleared at ministry level. A teacher clears first, then goes find a job. All then is needed is for school to present contract to MOE. Everything needed is issued immediately and with zero hassle to school.

Schools are stuck with lots of bad foreign teachers, liberalizing the movement of teachers will allow the good teachers to move to better schools faster - or befire their waivers run out. Schools can dump the fat, lazy flotsam and dead wood. Agencies and bad teachers are running a game, both complicit. Schools will not be limited to a few preselected agency geniuses and prior short order cooks.

Im surprised at how many illegal teachers are still in the system. Govt really needs to crack down and should start at the best public schools in Bangkok and work backward. There should not be a single teacher in Thailand teaching without a degree. That is simply basic reform of the system - it is a mockery. Let this lot work as teacher's aids for 15k like the Filipinos. TOEIC 900.

A Bachelors Degree is I believe technically a requirement for licensing as a teacher in Thailand. That said I am not convinced that it is any way a guarantee that the holder will be a good teacher, nor that it is necessary to hold a degree in order to teach English as a foreign language. Practical ability, enthusiasm and eventually experience are at least as important. Certainly allowing all foreigners with a type O visa and a degree to teach"at will" will not do anything to raise standards in the profession, apart from anything else, whilst I have met some foreigners who are not native English speakers whose English is excellent, most don't speak good enough English to teach it.

I have to ask, have you applied for a post as a teacher, but lost out to either a native English speaker without a degree, or perhaps a Filipino? Have you been turned down by an agency?

You need not worry about me, I'm grad of top 75 univ in US.

Bachelor's degree is a bare minimum for managers job at McDonalds. A bare min for many sub 20k jobs here in Thailand, for Thais.

If you cant muster the personal fortitude to squeek out an Engrish, Mass Media or Sociology degree at a crappy state college you are lost.

How on earth can a school employ a teacher without a degree? Do you know a country that routinely hires degreeless teachers? Certainly not Japan, Korea, Taiwan, HKG, China, Vietnam or Indonesia. All of MENA, Europe and SA...

Let me guess, you have no degree. Its always this lot that whines and degrades the education (BA/S).

Oh, the irony. Teaching and educating, but no education. Oh that's right...you have life experience AND paid attention in HS forty years ago.

Bachelor's degree is the minimum starting point in life for any decent job and a lot of not so decent jobs.

It really doesn't matter what you think, Thai MOE, TCT think otherwise. They want a degree like all other countries outside Africa.

Non degree people feel free to stop gaming the system and return home. Big Box is hiring.

Quite a lot of non degree holders have very decent positions or occupations and earn substantially more money than those that went through the degree mill. What is a top 75 Uni degree in the USA worth vs the salary of your average gardener, plummer, chef or electrician? Get off your high horse please.