Thailand's Skills Problem Is Slowing Down Its High-Tech Push

[webfact]

Thailand's Skills Problem Is Slowing Down Its High-Tech Push

By Busaba Sivasomboon

 

- Education Minister says past efforts to boost standards failed

- One-third of students functionally illiterate, World Bank says

 

Thailand’s Education Minister Teerakiat Jareonsettasin poses a rhetorical question as he ponders the task of making innovation a bigger engine of economic growth: would people prefer an electric car developed in the Southeast Asian nation, or one made by Tesla Inc.?

 

“Are you dreaming?” Teerakiat said in an interview. “We can’t even invent a motorbike.”

 

Teerakiat, who said he’s Thailand’s 20th education minister in 17 years, is trying to close the skills gap in a country struggling to match some of the education gains made by Southeast Asian neighbors. His strategy includes giving more autonomy to schools, universities and teachers to boost standards. He also advises retaining a focus on traditionally strong sectors such as food, healthcare and tourism.

 

Thailand’s challenge is a major one: the latest triennial Program for International Student Assessment results ranked it 54 out of 70 countries, even though education received about a fifth of the 2.73 trillion baht ($81 billion) annual budget, one of the largest expenditure items. Singapore was the top performer in the PISA assessment, with Japan second, Taiwan fourth, China sixth, and Vietnam eighth.

 

Full story: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-18/skills-gap-tests-thai-junta-s-goal-of-forging-innovative-economy

 

-- Bloomberg 2017-07-19

[trainman34014]

''One third of Students functionally Illiterate''.....Two thirds nearer to reality !

[darksidedog]

10 minutes ago, webfact said:

“Are you dreaming?” Teerakiat said in an interview. “We can’t even invent a motorbike.”

Truer words never spoken.

I don't claim to have the answer for Thailands education problems. Maybe the students are just inherently too stupid to learn anything meaningful. Kids and adults alike seem totally incapable of grasping even basic logic sometimes. Whatever, the dream for Thailand to become high tech is sadly a long, long way off.

[rkidlad]

I know a Thai guy who's head of IT at a big company here. He lived in the States for a long time and has moved back here. I asked what the new young guys here are like when it comes to IT. He believed them to be just as good as the ones he worked with in the US, but so many of the ones he works with seem to be completely feckless (his words not mine). 

 

He was critical of the education system here for stifling creativity and outside the box thinking. He said many staff would take all day to do one or two jobs that should take no more than an hour.  When he brought staff up on it, they looked at him like "you don't really understand how things work round here, do you?" - Reverse culture shock. 

 

He enjoys talking about things openly and frankly. He just has to remember that it's just talk. Action often leads to just chasing your tail. 

[clockman]

Face, patronage, corruption. This is the problem.?

[Dave67]

I suppose they could always join the armed forces, Plenty of Submarines, Helicopters, Fighter jets and armoured personnel carriers that need drivers.

[impulse]

1 hour ago, darksidedog said:

Truer words never spoken.

I don't claim to have the answer for Thailands education problems. Maybe the students are just inherently too stupid to learn anything meaningful. Kids and adults alike seem totally incapable of grasping even basic logic sometimes. Whatever, the dream for Thailand to become high tech is sadly a long, long way off.

 

There's a pretty well accepted theory that China went from being (one of?) the most advanced civilization(s) in the world thousands of years ago, to one of the most backward when the people figured out you could do better in life by sucking up to the right people than you could by actually doing anything productive.  As a consequence, the smartest people worked mostly on the right relationships and not so much on producing anything useful for society.

 

I think Thailand is still in that mode, while China's made great strides to get past it since Deng.

 

On an aside, I think the west is suffering something similar with politics and the bankster system.  Math geniuses who could be solving the energy and sustainability problem are too busy getting paid $$$ to write algorithms to scam the markets.  And potential titans of industry have figured out that the best investment their company can make is lobby money, not building things and creating jobs.

 

[mikebell]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

Student Assessment results ranked it 54 out of 70 countries,

That's pretty damming!  Which countries could be worse than Thailand?  My farang son taught in Hat Yai and tried to fail a student whose attendance was less than 5%.  The Principal would not allow it; 'Nobody fails at this school.'

[Cadbury]

This story being true then it sure makes the future of PM Prayut's beloved Thailand 4.0 look pretty sick. The PM is continually bragging about how Thailand 4.0 (as if it was all his creation) will drive the future Thai hi-tech economy but does nothing to upgrade the low quality of the human resources available to do it. This is part of what Vietnam had to say at the WEF.

 

"Vietnam is set to focus on developing its human resources, science, and technology in order to keep up with the fourth industrial revolution, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc told participants at a World Economic Forum discussion on Thursday."

 

Seems PM Prayut is not in the Photo of ASEAN leaders because he was a "no- show" at the Forum. Maybe he was too important to be seen mixing it with this riff-raff so he stayed home and sent his doormats Pridiyathorn Devakula, Deputy PM, Narongchai Akrasanee,  and Petipong Pungbun instead.

What hope Thailand???

 

 

Edited July 20, 2017 by Cadbury

[marko kok prong]

Education system is hopeless,Thai's seriously need to speak English across the board to get anywhere,even my local bank they struggle,should be mandatory for anyone in banks service industrys ect  to have a reasonable level of English and before all the "it Thailand why should they speak English" or do you speak Thai[ i do,not fluently though],numptys start on me, i would point out it is the International language of commerce and diplomacy.

[Cadbury]

1 hour ago, marko kok prong said:

Education system is hopeless,Thai's seriously need to speak English across the board to get anywhere,even my local bank they struggle,should be mandatory for anyone in banks service industrys ect  to have a reasonable level of English and before all the "it Thailand why should they speak English" or do you speak Thai[ i do,not fluently though],numptys start on me, i would point out it is the International language of commerce and diplomacy.

But some moron who shall remain nameless has been running around Country telling people, including schoolchildren, that the Thai language will become the world's international language. 

This military government seems intent on discouraging use and competency of the English language. Perhaps because most of the insecure military leaders can't speak it and are paranoid that those who can will be saying nasty things about them they can't understand.

[wirat69]

4 hours ago, rkidlad said:

He was critical of the education system here for stifling creativity and outside the box thinking

 

4 hours ago, webfact said:

Thailand’s 20th education minister in 17 years,

That's why!!!

[Chang_paarp]

Education system is hopeless,Thai's seriously need to speak English across the board to get anywhere,even my local bank they struggle,should be mandatory for anyone in banks service industrys ect  to have a reasonable level of English and before all the "it Thailand why should they speak English" or do you speak Thai[ i do,not fluently though],numptys start on me, i would point out it is the International language of commerce and diplomacy.

Whilst I agree with you the French might get their noses out of joint with your last point, they seem to think French is the language of diplomacy.

[klauskunkel]

5 hours ago, webfact said:

“Are you dreaming?” Teerakiat said in an interview. “We can’t even invent a motorbike.”

Hah!

Truth is though, you don't even have to invent it, you could just copy one..., but then again, where to find a xerox machine big enough...

[debate101]

For education to ever, ever improve here, you'd need one of two things to happen:

 

1 - Give the public ownership of the education system (e.g. S. Korea). Not going to happen, because the system is a tool of political repression and democracy is "unsuitable for Thai people" according to the people who repeatedly use force to destroy it.

 

2 - Have someone competent calling the shots (e.g. Singapore). However, it looks like that ship has sailed, as Thailand's Lee Kuan Yew got too full of himself and pissed off the wrong people, so he gets a life sentence of sand in his cocktails rather than statues and parades.

 

Alas.

Edited July 20, 2017 by debate101

[mike324]

All the past PM thinks to improve education they can just buy more supplies, but Thai textbooks are outdated and the teaching system needs a complete revamp. All they have to do is follow singapores model.

[Cloggie]

I worked with engineers who came from the University and were not able to use Excel, they used it with a calculator.......

 

[maewang99]

6 hours ago, trainman34014 said:

''One third of Students functionally Illiterate''.....Two thirds nearer to reality !

 

you guys in Bangkok live in a totally different world.....

I've only seen 3 Thais ever reading a book..... voraciously.. which is the only way to read a book....

in ***************15 years*************** of living here.....

of those 3... one guy was from Bangkok..... 
all of them but one were reading paperback fiction....

and I have worked several years in the schools... including a Thai university for a year... full time... and lived on campus.... and never saw ONE ajarn or student doing anything more than staring at a open book while eating something or talking or copying something....
 

it's must be a Thai thing to hide when you read something. what, in a closet somewhere?  
 

where do they hide all of their books? no one's home I have visited is big enough to hide books, and I do live here.....

2/3rds ?????????????????? no. more like the same number pct as our genes are chimpanzee...  

call it 98%... from Nan to Tak, and Uttaradit to Mae Sai.




 

Edited July 20, 2017 by maewang99

[impulse]

1 hour ago, Chang_paarp said:

Whilst I agree with you the French might get their noses out of joint with your last point, they seem to think French is the language of diplomacy.

 

 

4 words, none of them French:

 

Show me the money.

 

Dominate the commerce and it doesn't matter what language they pretend to use for diplomacy.

 

[Classic Ray]

1 hour ago, klauskunkel said:

Hah!

Truth is though, you don't even have to invent it, you could just copy one..., but then again, where to find a xerox machine big enough...

Even Thailand's home grown car, the Thairung, which no one with any sense seems to buy, uses a Toyota engine. Good choice but not exactly kickstarting homegrown innovation. Maybe they should go straight  to electric power, few car batteries strung together with terminals secured by matchsticks should match Thai quality standards!

[saminoz]

I am certain that the Chinese, Koreans, the Viets, Malaysia, Singapore et.al. must look this way and laugh their asses off!  They surely don't have nightmares about any near future Thai tech giant!

[inThailand]

6 hours ago, trainman34014 said:

''One third of Students functionally Illiterate''.....Two thirds nearer to reality !

Your being way to optimistic!

[Enoon]

 

The nature of the education system is just one of the symptoms of the illness.

 

They want all the things that modernity promises, but resolutely refuse to adopt the philosophies (moral/social/political/educational) that allow it to grow in the mind.  The reasons they do so are well understood.

 

Thus they condemn their population to be mere consumers of modern "objects", rather than originators/innovators/producers of them or, perish the thought, modern ideas.

 

 

Edited July 20, 2017 by Enoon

[midas]

The list of prohibited activities for foreigners regarding work permits should be changed from ”occupations which Thailand is not yet ready to compete in “ to “ occupations which Thailand will never be ready to complete in” 

[Kasset Tak]

What can you expect when you have an educational system that does not allow a teacher to give failing grades to the students?
While I was teaching in a high school I had the grades changed by someone higher up the chain because they thought the grades were too low, I also had parents threatening me for giving their children low grades. Students and parents have offered me; money, things, and sex for higher grades but my answer to those offers has always been: "STUDY, that is the only thing you can do for higher grades!".
Now I am teaching in vocational college and actually have some students that really want to learn. Why?
Because if they get good grades and can retain the knowledge, then they have several opportunities to apply for either to go abroad for studies or internships or they can choose dual education and work with some of the largest companies here in Thailand!

 

[Redline]

Well, it is refreshing to see some honest for once.  Why don't they pay people to come in and help?  They can't do it, and they can't face it.  Doomed

[Redline]

9 hours ago, clockman said:

Face, patronage, corruption. This is the problem.?

Plus pure laziness

[Redline]

Yep, when you can't fail, everybody does

[marko kok prong]

On 7/20/2017 at 1:54 PM, Cadbury said:

But some moron who shall remain nameless has been running around Country telling people, including schoolchildren, that the Thai language will become the world's international language. 

This military government seems intent on discouraging use and competency of the English language. Perhaps because most of the insecure military leaders can't speak it and are paranoid that those who can will be saying nasty things about them they can't understand.

Good post,if said moron really beleives that he truly is demented,for instance :cow,in thai could mean white,rice or mountain,okay i left the prefixs out ,but then we have mai,mai,mai ,i mean really it is not a developed language with the nuance of English.

[marko kok prong]

On 7/20/2017 at 4:17 PM, Enoon said:

 

The nature of the education system is just one of the symptoms of the illness.

 

They want all the things that modernity promises, but resolutely refuse to adopt the philosophies (moral/social/political/educational) that allow it to grow in the mind.  The reasons they do so are well understood.

 

Thus they condemn their population to be mere consumers of modern "objects", rather than originators/innovators/producers of them or, perish the thought, modern ideas.

 

 

As i have said before,Face is the biggest thing holding back this country,why buy submarines and armoured personell carriers,we all know if the say Vietnamese wanted to invade the Thai's would last about 2 days before surrender,it's all about face.But the Japanese and many other Asians have this concept too,but are far ahead of Thailand,and why because the actually have a proper education system.