OBEC launches online course to improve quality of teachers

[webfact]

OBEC launches online course to improve quality of teachers

BANGKOK, 9 June 2015 (NNT)-The office of Basic Education Commission (OBEC) is introducing an online course called ‘Teachers and Educational Personnel Enhancement (TEPE)’ with the aim of improving the quality of classroom instructions in schools nationwide.

According to the OBEC Secretary General, Kamol Rodklai, the online course, also known as 'TEPE Online', is among several urgent strategies OBEC is trying to achieve. The course has been developed by the Faculty of Education of Chulalongkorn University.

The TEPE Online provides online training for teachers, educational supervisors and school principals in various academic fields. Those completing the course will be able to apply for a teacher certificate or entitled to promotion. An exam will be held after the course is finished at the Primary Education Service Area Office in each province.

The TEPE Online will be tried for the first time beginning this month and is expected it to be fully functional in August. Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha will be invited to chair the opening ceremony and present a teacher smart card to each of the course applicants.


-- NNT 2015-06-09

[BigBadGeordie]

If it is anything like the other training initiatives I have seen at the schools in my area, teachers will simply send the kids home for the day in order to undertake this course!

[casualbiker]

I hope it's available in English for the foreign teachers in Thailand as well!

[casualbiker]

Here is the website... No English.. http://www.utqplus.com/tepeonline/?module=project&action=group&cid=MzM=2

[zaphod reborn]

Money would be better spent paying the teachers a proper salary and prohibiting moonlighting. More absent teachers are working second jobs instead of attending their classes or putting in the effort of marking real exams (not multiple choice rote-learning tests).

[Cuchulainn]

Yep. Another world beater!! An online course will help solve the pathetic, sub standard, appalling educational system that has been here for generations and generations!!

Another farcical smoke screen for ASEAN!!

[casualbiker]

I honestly wouldn't give a shit WHAT the course was like if it was actually a route to job security and a teaching licence. Unfortunately it doesn't look like it!

[Yooyung]

I honestly wouldn't give a shit WHAT the course was like if it was actually a route to job security and a teaching licence. Unfortunately it doesn't look like it!

You, me and a good few others as well are thinking exactly the same thing.......

[quandow]

NOTE: This is referring to THAI teachers, not foreign teachers.

During my years of teaching in the largest private school system in southeast Asia, I have seen these poor teachers brow beaten, overworked, berated in front of parents and constantly reminded that they are chattel by every Thai administrator in every school. I worked in five different schools but the admin behavior remained the same - you are scum, I am above you so you have no recourse, now shut up and obey every insane command I burden you with. These Thai teachers made sincere efforts to do the best they could yet were never acknowledged as quality employees. I believe this is a cultural, systemic problem and until Thailand drops a little of this hubris, things cannot change, regardless of the amount of money you throw at it. Add to this the rampant corruption, and what other result could you possibly expect?

[ajarntommy222]

This would be great if the Thai trainers are trained by professionals that know the most up-todate educational strategies. The only way to do this is to selct a country they want to model and send teacher/trainers to learn. This would not be a few month project it will take at least a year of "on job training" in the learning classroom and then in the teaching classroom where they would demonstrate what they are learning. These trainers would have to be "certified" by the hosting country. I remember when I was going through teacher training in the USA I spent one full year at a local elementary school. The first part of the year was in classes oberving the teacher. My school day was broken down into sessions one session would be in the classroom observing a specific strategyand the other part of the day was in a classroom with my university professor going over that strategy. We were observed many times during that year by the school classroom teacher and our university professors. We ended the year with one quarter in an internship program at that same school.

Another thing they could do is to set up a program with ISB or one of the British International schools and work together to develop a local teacher training program. Create a "hard core" Thai teacher training department by selecting the best Thai teachers available and pair them off with teachers at these upper level international school. Make sure the program involves modeling sessions, small group discussion learning activities, research, curriculum development, implementationof strategies and of course evaluations.