Thai editorial: Science education imperative for the future

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EDITORIAL
Science education imperative for the future
The Nation

Humans risk being their own worst enemies; we need greater public understanding of new technologies

BANGKOK: -- Before he passed away in 1996, leading American cosmologist Carl Sagan called for a virtual revamp of education.

With the world being more and more influenced by dizzying technological advancement, he insisted during one of his last interviews that things would "blow up in our faces" if we let just a few befuddled politicians and self-serving interest groups decide scientific and technological directions. The proportion between the "speed" of technology and the "number" of people who can truly understand it wasn't right, and this imbalance could threaten the world as a whole, he pointed out.

It was a visionary call from someone who didn't even live to see the tipping point of smartphones, the birth and booming of social media and how jobs, plays and learning have been revolutionised or, in some cases, erased. But although his call was quite sensible, science teaching and learning have not been much different from his days. The unpromising situation is a lot more so in Thailand, where education as a whole, let alone the strenuous subjects of science and technology, has been woeful and dictated by bad politics.

Sagan simply feared what greed and ignorance could combine to unleash. How many politicians have sufficient scientific knowledge? It's a question posed by Sagan who reminded everyone that they were the ones passing bills on, say, space research budgets or how far cloning experiments should go. Without enough knowledge, politicians would rely on the one thing they are good at, and that is rhetoric. As we all know, science and rhetoric can rarely be good companions.

Unless a lot more people are equipped to see through the rhetoric, politicians and business entrepreneurs will be solely responsible for the directions of world science and technology. Simply put, nobody will be able to really question the viability of a telecom concession that politicians in power give to a big corporate. That, however, may turn out to be the least of our concerns, because science and technology involve a lot more than radio signals.

How can we counter-balance the business-politics alliance that otherwise will control the paths of science and technology and possibly take the whole world near the brink with it? An overhaul of how the young generation learns things is the only way. People, according to Sagan, give science and technology more credit than they deserve when it comes to "difficulty". If humans can understand the tax systems and stock markets, they should be able to grasp other complexities, he said.

The situation, however, is hard to turn around in Thailand, where, if we look carefully, a few big problems stemmed from important know-how being in unscrupulous or greedy hands. That is compounded by the fact that politics has the biggest say on what Thai students should learn and how. We don't have much hope when we look at the names of education, information technology or science ministers over the past few years.

Some critics think that Sagan's call has an anti-religion undertone. Religions, after all, encourage people to have faith, meaning there are circumstances where curiosity should be put aside. Scientific learning, meanwhile, promotes analytical thinking and continuous doubts. When asked if religions would hamper a revolution of science and technology learning, he simply said science and technology need morality, too.

Thailand under a military government has set up a so-called education "super-board". It's supposed to give Thai education the real attention it deserves. Nothing has been said, though, about what Sagan believed all students in the world should learn a lot more.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/Science-education-imperative-for-the-future-30259281.html


-- The Nation 2015-05-04

[ChrisY1]

Stop the repression in education here.....why do they seem so hell bent on the restriction of kids education?....no offence to expat teaching staff at all.

Any wonder the wealthy send their kids offshore.

Edited May 4, 2015 by ChrisY1

[seajae]

the uneducated are easier to control, if they had smart people then the graft and corruption would become a lot harder to manage as the masses realized exactly what was taking place. To think they do this all under the proposal of saving face by not failing anyone that cannot pass any of their exams due to their total lack of any ability to think for themselves. By raising thew education levels so that all students have to learn and pass exams they would also stop a lot of the idiotic higher purchase people do, the way they go about with no consideration for anyone else etc, the country would improve in leaps and bounds but that would lower the ability to do good old graft and corruption, it would also remove a lot of the driving force behind the reds and yellows with the poor uneducated masses no longer being their patsies

[cloudhopper]

The author correctly observes why there isn't much hope that education will ever improve here.

[Mot Dang]

Stop the repression in education here.....why do they seem so hell bent on the restriction of kids education?....no offence to expat teaching staff at all.

Any wonder the wealthy send their kids offshore.

Having put one son and three nieces through secondary then tertiary education in the Kingdom, I know what you mean. Having a MSc. myself, I sometimes was appalled at the level of education dished out. Meeting teachers and lecturers half the time I came away thinking they were a bit dozy.

But the kids are doing well, I instilled that into them, and the first are coming up to graduation. Next comes employment, shit not looking forward to that. But you probably know what that's going to be like.

Some times the kids say to me that they would like to work overseas, but then I have to explain to them that an employer may request a bridging course. They find it difficult to understand that some courses are not up to scratch when compared to the West.

I personally believe that Thai kids are being cheated, so much potential being wasted. And then there is the national and culturally acceptable past-time of being "khee kiat" . But that's another story.

Edited May 4, 2015 by Mot Dang

[Suffinator]

Stop the repression in education here.....why do they seem so hell bent on the restriction of kids education?....no offence to expat teaching staff at all.

Any wonder the wealthy send their kids offshore.

The most simplest form of control. Keep a population largely uneducated and they are very easy to control. Start educating them and they'll start asking awkward questions which cannot be answered.

It's the same with the Junta now squeezing the press to follow their instructions; the less information a person has the less they are informed and therefore unable to form an opinion which again leaves them easily duped.

[Thaddeus]

What's the saying.....

The Mayor keeps them stupid and the Pastor keeps them poor.

Or is it the other way around, or are they both responsible?

[trogers]

Well, we had a Science minister who proposed the use of outboard motors to clear flood...that's sophisticated Thai science...

[attrayant]

Science classrooms aren't cheap to build, and as long as school directors continue to pinch pennies and run their schools as nothing more than a profit center, nothing will ever change. Get the students in and out as quickly as possible while spending as little as possible.

[gk10002000]

Stop the repression in education here.....why do they seem so hell bent on the restriction of kids education?....no offence to expat teaching staff at all.

Any wonder the wealthy send their kids offshore.

Very few if any dictatorial regimes allow free and un-repressed education. Those dang fangled new ideas and foreign concepts can upset things. Education in math and science really requires a lot of peer review and communication, and top notch education requires contact with outside countries and people. Once the genie of independent thought and rationale thought are out of the bottle, it doesn't like to be put back in.

[Plutojames88]

Carl Sagan in his last year was concerned at the rise of paranormal beliefs, and religious fantastical claims that set out against science.

He saw science as a candle in the darkness and one of his last warnings was a return to dark age thinking.

We see many shows based in medieval guise ...themes .

And whilst he wrote about the dark age witch hunts , the main focus was on the belief in things unproven...

Thailand seems to be an easy place to find someone who might believe in ghosts....certainly the latter , things unproven.

Lottery number forecasts be visions and dreams , even a number plate from a fallen rider.

The Pm ( akin military man with the guns and army) consults the seers.

It's amusing he expects the beliefs in the unseen by the populace.

He simply does one simple trick.

Superciliously he bombards the population with thousands of news items .

Like here.

Whilst we debate them one thing is done in this slight of hand.

Acceptance of rule.

The slight of hand is we take our eyes of the theft of the coin .( democracy)

The other polls and reports and tourists numbers matter little .

It just buys time until its too late.

The magic is fawning love to the audience he shows his tricks to.

The west is hated by him because unlike China where he learns the tricks from.

The west says you have the coin in that hand ....and gets it right.

It's under that cup.

Nothing disappears .

The death

The slavery

The oppression

The economy

The media get to report or hint at some.

But the scientific approach baffles the leader.

So he employes children to propagate his propaganda .

Shuts media stations down

Threatens execution.

Promises change....as next trick.

Unfortunately he is exposed as a fake .

The show is over.

Science tests things.

Demonstrates truth.

It's ironical but with merit Thailand wishes to embrace it more.

The tricks , and ghosts , and magical polls and fake governments , and fake democracy will first need to be put away.

The west won't believe any version of democracy accept true democracy.

The west won't believe slavery and corruption and human trafficking is vanished until it has.

If Thailand"s military seek the Scientific approach then the truth needs to be exposed not hidden, as it was in the killing fields of their southern jungles.

[NongKhaiKid]

Forget scientific education, walk before running and get the basics right.

[Crazy chef 1]

Science education imperative for the future