Thai Education Reform

So today a friend posted a couple articles on his Facebook page about Thai education reform movements.  As you know, this has been a topic of interest for me, and also one of great frustration.  As much as I love working with some students here, I am equally depressed by the systematic "passing" of other students.  No matter what a student does, they are guaranteed to pass.  This creates a system with no sense of personal responsibility and limited motivation.  The only true motivation is in those students who want to achieve grade 4 and pursue higher education after high school.  But that leaves a lot of other students just sitting back with the expectation of "success" no matter what they do.  This frustrates me to no end.

Now I know this is a problem in the U.S. too.  I am very familiar with the practice of passing students on to the next grade even when it is clear that they have not mastered the material for their current grade level.  But it is not as institutionalized back home as it is here.  In the U.S., it is at least possible to fail a test--here if a student fails a test, the get retested until they pass.  Back home, you can give failing performance reviews--here I would get reported to the director if I did so.  And in the U.S., a student can be held back--it may not happen as often as it should, but it does happen.  Here there is nothing built into the system to be held back, the concept simply doesn't exist.  You always go to the next grade, no matter what.

I find it interesting to read about the Thai educational reforms.  It seems that they attempted a huge overhaul of the system back in 1999 to counter the culture of rote memorization/regurgitation that is the hallmark of Thai education.  Needless to say, the changes didn't really do much--rote learning is still the modus operandi here in Thailand.  Well, it seems that education reform is once again a hot topic, with politicians wondering how best to prepare Thai students for success in an international economy.  P.S. Maybe cut down on all of the classes missed for random events like camps, science days, parades--while these may be a lot of fun, I have lost about half of my teaching time to these activities that don't do much to further the students' educational goals.  Not saying eliminate all of these activities, but it might be time to pick and choose which are the most important!

Anyway, here are the articles that my friend posted.  Worth a read if you have the time, brings up interesting points.  I don't agree with everything, but at least talking about it is a start.  Oh, and my friend is about to leave for Taiwan--it seems that the work environment here in the Thai school system does not mesh well with his personality (no surprises there), so he applied for Taiwan for next term.  Best of luck in your new school!

http://livinghour.org/blog/isaan_thai_university/thailand-education-reform-teacher-training-more/
http://tdri.or.th/en/tdri-insight/standardised-tests-the-right-option-for-thai-education-reform/