Laughing Gravy Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 It has been mentioned and mentioned over again for 20 years about the education system here failing students. It is simple really. The teachers and teaching methods, lack of continuous training, allowing everyone to pass, to much time spent on route learning and Thai culture and poor administrators. Change all of them and you will see an improvement. So the likelihood of these happening is zero IMHO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ceruhe Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bangkok101 Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 i question the qualifications of the teachers. Many times I hear teachers are volunteers, do these volunteers possess the qualifications to teach? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mick220675 Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 2 hours ago, colinneil said: Where do you get them facts from? Not every school has 50 students in 1 class, or not enough teachers. Some schools have too many teachers, school near me has 6 teachers 51 students, so your figures do not work here. Our village school has told 3 teachers they are no longer require as they do not have enough children to teach. My brother in laws wife has been teaching for the last six years now she is out of work, she sits in our garden all day eating all my mango's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonlover Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 A lot has been written here about the education system in Thailand (with varying degrees of expertise). However there is no mention of the upbringing of the children that attend those institutions. I'm no expert on education, but I am thrice a parent, so I know a thing or two about that topic. My experience in this country convinces me that these children are being short-changed by their parents much as by the schools they attend. Many are not brought up by their parents at all, but by some elderly relative who has little or no interest in the child's development. I rarely see books or educational toys to motivate and stimulate their charges. The children seem to scratch around playing with whatever they can find, whilst their minders laze around idly watching the ever present TV often whilst imbibing their daily fix of Loa Kaow. If a child complains for whatever reason, a ball of sticky rice is stuffed in its mouth to keep it quiet. Another observation is that there is never a ‘bed-time’ discipline and very often nowhere private to sleep anyway. It is well known in the developed world that a good night’s sleep is vital to a child’s development. A lot of this was brought home to me in a rather strange way. Some time ago my wife and I took a bus ride out to visit some friends out of town. Our journey coincided with the morning school run and the bus quickly filled up with children. I’ve travelling on many a school bus in my time in various countries and one common feature is noise; lots of it. Not here, the kids sat like subdued crash test dummies. There was hardly a sound from them. It was almost eerie! With such a lack of motivation, what hope does any education system have of producing bright adults? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kasset Tak Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 The Thai system has failed and one major problem is the policy in primary and secondary schools to not give failing grades... even if the students have been absent more than 50% and score 0% on their final exams! In the past I was teaching secondary/high school and no students got failing grades, the director even told me that I cold not give 0 to two students that had not been in class for the whole semester! Now I teach in vocational college and my students are deemed to be on the lowest part of the educational scale in Thailand but here it's OK to give them grade 0 (or other grades that forces them to study again/extra) if they don't study and don't pass their exams. Just a few of the questions that my student's will have to answer in their final exam... What is the common name for vitamins, minerals, protein, carbohydrates and fat? What is the meaning of husbandry? What do you call the act of removing the testicles from a male animal? What is the meaning of dairy cattle? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thaiowl Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 Keep the the masses ignorant, docile, subservient and frightened and you can do anything you want. QED. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JAG Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 A lot has been written here about the education system in Thailand (with varying degrees of expertise). However there is no mention of the upbringing of the children that attend those institutions. I'm no expert on education, but I am thrice a parent, so I know a thing or two about that topic. My experience in this country convinces me that these children are being short-changed by their parents much as by the schools they attend. Many are not brought up by their parents at all, but by some elderly relative who has little or no interest in the child's development. I rarely see books or educational toys to motivate and stimulate their charges. The children seem to scratch around playing with whatever they can find, whilst their minders laze around idly watching the ever present TV often whilst imbibing their daily fix of Loa Kaow. If a child complains for whatever reason, a ball of sticky rice is stuffed in its mouth to keep it quiet. Another observation is that there is never a ‘bed-time’ discipline and very often nowhere private to sleep anyway. It is well known in the developed world that a good night’s sleep is vital to a child’s development. A lot of this was brought home to me in a rather strange way. Some time ago my wife and I took a bus ride out to visit some friends out of town. Our journey coincided with the morning school run and the bus quickly filled up with children. I’ve travelling on many a school bus in my time in various countries and one common feature is noise; lots of it. Not here, the kids sat like subdued crash test dummies. There was hardly a sound from them. It was almost eerie! With such a lack of motivation, what hope does any education system have of producing bright adults?I quite agree about lack of parenting skills from substitute parents, and with the absence of "bedtime discipline"; on the matter of noise I am surprised! In my experience the one thing that is never missing with Thai children, certainly in primary and the first years of secondary, is noise, be it in school or traveling to or from school!:):) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krataiboy Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 Nothing to worry about. With children everywhere spending most of their time with their faces glued to narcissistic trivia on their smartphones, in a few generations the whole world will be populated entirely by morons and run by robots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krataiboy Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 Not to worry. With kids everywhere spending most of their time exchanging narcissistic crap on their smartphones, in a few generations the entire world will be populated almost entirely by human morons and run by robots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fruitman Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 3 hours ago, bmore99 said: And nobody ever thought of simplifying the overcomplicated Thai writing system? Separate the words; write hidden vowels; straight forward tone marks; unique consonants and vowels per sound; etc. In other words phonetic Thai. Thailand better starts using the western alphabet...the kids have to learn too many letters now so it's hard to learn english or any other language. Malaysia uses western alphabet and is much better in english plus much easyier for foreigners to read signs/learn the language. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bmore99 Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 I'm no linguistic expert, but surely you're referring to Vietnamese rather than Laotian. The latter looks as incomprehensible to me as does Thai. But I can at least read the former, even though I don't understand it!Pretty sure you can't read vietnamese, although the letters look familiar, their sound isn't at all. There is no reason to change the Thai letters, as they allow all the necessary sounds of which many are not available in the Latin alphabet. Specially the vowels are very consistent, unlike English. Just unduplicate them and stop making the tone mark dependable on the class of consonant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Srikcir Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 4 hours ago, mikebell said: Shame there is a punctuation error in a headline about educational failure. They must have fixed it? What I see: The Thai Education System is Failing its Students Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonlover Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 5 hours ago, JAG said: I quite agree about lack of parenting skills from substitute parents, and with the absence of "bedtime discipline"; on the matter of noise I am surprised! In my experience the one thing that is never missing with Thai children, certainly in primary and the first years of secondary, is noise, be it in school or traveling to or from school! :):) Yes. As you can imagine, this subdued bus journey was quite a surprise to me as well! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trogers Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 8 minutes ago, Moonlover said: Yes. As you can imagine, this subdued bus journey was quite a surprise to me as well! Early morning. Sleeping kids don't talk... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonlover Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 1 minute ago, trogers said: Early morning. Sleeping kids don't talk... Which I guess goes full circle back to my comment about bed-time discipline don't you think? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trogers Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 5 hours ago, Kasset Tak said: The Thai system has failed and one major problem is the policy in primary and secondary schools to not give failing grades... even if the students have been absent more than 50% and score 0% on their final exams! In the past I was teaching secondary/high school and no students got failing grades, the director even told me that I cold not give 0 to two students that had not been in class for the whole semester! Now I teach in vocational college and my students are deemed to be on the lowest part of the educational scale in Thailand but here it's OK to give them grade 0 (or other grades that forces them to study again/extra) if they don't study and don't pass their exams. Just a few of the questions that my student's will have to answer in their final exam... What is the common name for vitamins, minerals, protein, carbohydrates and fat? What is the meaning of husbandry? What do you call the act of removing the testicles from a male animal? What is the meaning of dairy cattle? See my post #12. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trogers Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 10 minutes ago, Moonlover said: Which I guess goes full circle back to my comment about bed-time discipline don't you think? ? my Thai friend's nephew is not back home even at 2am, and his parents don't ask questions. He was recently caught taking meth, and his parents just found out from school he was absent often. A 15 yo kid with his own motorcycle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kasset Tak Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 2 minutes ago, trogers said: See my post #12. I fully agree! Two example about not wanting to study, "extra curricular activities" and no parent control really destroy the students: Last semester 2 colleagues and I went to see the parents of a 15 year old student that had been absent for 4 weeks, his parents told us that he got dressed in his school uniform and left home on his motorcycle everyday around 7a.m. so they had no idea that he didn't go to school. 2 weeks after our meeting he was arrested by the police and went to jail for 3 months for using Yaba. He came to school 3 weeks in the beginning of this semester and he is now back in jail. I went out partying with some of my coworkers and early morning we ended up at one of these places that has a glass wall between the "workers" and you... 3 of the girls were my students in M4-M6 and that's really sickening!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonlover Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 34 minutes ago, Kasset Tak said: I fully agree! Two example about not wanting to study, "extra curricular activities" and no parent control really destroy the students: Last semester 2 colleagues and I went to see the parents of a 15 year old student that had been absent for 4 weeks, his parents told us that he got dressed in his school uniform and left home on his motorcycle everyday around 7a.m. so they had no idea that he didn't go to school. 2 weeks after our meeting he was arrested by the police and went to jail for 3 months for using Yaba. He came to school 3 weeks in the beginning of this semester and he is now back in jail. I went out partying with some of my coworkers and early morning we ended up at one of these places that has a glass wall between the "workers" and you... 3 of the girls were my students in M4-M6 and that's really sickening!!! I went out partying with some of my coworkers and early morning we ended up at one of these places that has a glass wall between the "workers" and you... 3 of the girls were my students in M4-M6 and that's really sickening!!! Hmm. Do these establishments have one way glass, or does this mean there are now 3 students questioning the moral values of their educators? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonlover Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 6 hours ago, fruitman said: Thailand better starts using the western alphabet...the kids have to learn too many letters now so it's hard to learn english or any other language. Malaysia uses western alphabet and is much better in english plus much easyier for foreigners to read signs/learn the language. Surely this is an irrelevance. What may be incomprehensible to us is perfectly legible to a native speaker. It certainly doesn't seem to hinder my wife and her pals when they chat away on Facebook Messenger! The crux of this topic is the quality of teaching, not the language in which it is presented! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kasset Tak Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 57 minutes ago, Moonlover said: I went out partying with some of my coworkers and early morning we ended up at one of these places that has a glass wall between the "workers" and you... 3 of the girls were my students in M4-M6 and that's really sickening!!! Hmm. Do these establishments have one way glass, or does this mean there are now 3 students questioning the moral values of their educators? I'm not sure but I think it's one way mirror. And what moral values, 4 single men ending up at an establishment like that 1-2am after an evening out partying and the girls were already there "working"... Anyway the deputy director didn't hesitate to talk with the girls and the owner of the establishment there and then, threatening to call the police as the two of the girls were under 18! At least all the girls have moved on to study in Uni but I do know that at 1 of them "worked" to pay her way through Uni... she posted about it on FB!? BTW... many Thai students seems to be totally lack moral values, I have been offered money, things and sex for grades and every time I have told the student that they can only get (good) grades if they STUDY HARD! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cardinalblue Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 Better to buy subs for the gulf of thailand and bear cages so bears don't fall out of the sky... Both poor decision makers were products of the Thai educational system... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonclark Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 10 hours ago, bmore99 said: And nobody ever thought of simplifying the overcomplicated Thai writing system? Separate the words; write hidden vowels; straight forward tone marks; unique consonants and vowels per sound; etc. In other words phonetic Thai. Even highly educated Thai take a very long time in reading an article in Thai compared to Western people reading in their language. I understand your point. But the chinese have a far more complicated language like the japanese and koreans and that does not limited their education system. The language of education isnt the problem its the lack of direction from those in charge. Absolutly no plan or interest to develop or fix the system other than bland throw away nonsense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wakeupplease Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 Children there spend more time at school than most other countries, yet when it comes to education are clueless. Why is That. Because like social media, education is frowned upon in certain quarters, they are simply scared sh>>less of anyone who is more intelligence than them (which my dog is). This is why a lot of farangs end up in the soup? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NCC1701A Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 9 hours ago, Kasset Tak said: What do you call the act of removing the testicles from a male animal? This is so easy. Marrying a Thai woman. Next question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonlover Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 3 hours ago, Kasset Tak said: I'm not sure but I think it's one way mirror. And what moral values, 4 single men ending up at an establishment like that 1-2am after an evening out partying and the girls were already there "working"... Anyway the deputy director didn't hesitate to talk with the girls and the owner of the establishment there and then, threatening to call the police as the two of the girls were under 18! At least all the girls have moved on to study in Uni but I do know that at 1 of them "worked" to pay her way through Uni... she posted about it on FB!? BTW... many Thai students seems to be totally lack moral values, I have been offered money, things and sex for grades and every time I have told the student that they can only get (good) grades if they STUDY HARD! Sorry but stones and glass houses are the only things that spring to my mind here! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anon4546543 Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 I was invited to speak to students last year at the ASEAN event. Then invited to speak to the English learning class. Not one student knew the names of the Capital cities in ASEAN. No one could give me the slightest small sentence in anything approaching English. The teacher who is married to a good English speaking Indian wants me to teach conversational English. This is forbidden by Thai law and I am not going to risk my visa. The thing was the students prostrated themselves down on the floor. It was an eye opener for me, not knowing to be embarrassed or special. These students had all received high marks for their English speaking skills. It is a shame really, parents spending money on a non outcome course. No valid education that I could see Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maewang99 Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 (edited) I'm always confused on this topic. I know that ****most**** farlang do not agree with a clear minority view. only a few find something negative to say. a very few. when it comes to schools and education... most farlang share the belief that buildings with a flagpole, plus classrooms and some books on a shelf in a "library room" and lots of children and young adults in school uniforms is education. maybe even that the uniforms are essential... they reinforce that everyone should be ****listening**** to the same material... and it helps visually because otherwise the weight of evidence provided by a sign that says "Rohng Reeyahn".... just wouldn't work... we are visual creatures. and it is after all a centralized national system...... so everyone ****listening**** and learning in the same way is a good thing. it serves them later throughout life. but the big thing... is that for many of the school attendees, they must listen in a required 2nd language that is not their "local language" but more importantly..... quite..... shows no sign of having evolved as a language for literacy.... for instance, is all but spelled phonetically.... unlike any other tonal language. but that makes it's very easy to learn!!!! to speak and listen to.... in a world that is.... getting smaller and where AI..... is making leaps we will all be able to see soon.....ummmmm..... I think there is a flaw.... in my logic here...... let me get back to you on this. Edited March 2, 2017 by maewang99 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Get Real Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 It´s totally clear that the education system is failing and prohibiting studens to develop great skills in their choosen areas. However in many case the studens are also failing the system by disregarding what they actually can learn. There is still no solution, and the fact that stands is that all is wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now