FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
nationthailand

Doctor overtakes teacher as fave career choice of Thai children

Doctor overtakes teacher as fave career choice of Thai children

THAI CHILDREN have picked “Doctor” as their top dream career over last year’s favourite, “Teacher” in an annual survey that also revealed the impact of the digital world on the lives of the nation’s youth.

“YouTuber”, “Gamer” and “Game-caster” were seen as the “hottest jobs” in the 10th Children’s Dream Career Survey by Adecco Group Thailand.
The Top Idol for the year is owned by the group BNK48, who won kids’ hearts by their endless effort to achieve their dreams.
The survey, completed by 2,682 Thai children aged 7 to 14 years old, found that Thai children view a career as a doctor as allowing them to help people, perform good deeds and earn a good income.
“Teacher” was next highest dream career, as children respect the impact that profession can have on building the knowledge and morality that builds good citizenship.
Ranking third is “Athlete”, especially “football player”, a favourite choice among most boys with a passion for that sport. “Soldier” ranked in fourth place. And the rising dream career in the fifth spot was “E-sports Athlete and Gamecaster”.
Trending careers in 2019: ESports Athlete - Gamer - Game Caster

E-sports Athlete and Game Caster attracted the interest of many Thai children, who love playing games and reasoned that to do so professionally would be fun and also a source of income and fame.
This is consistent with another survey result – that 94 per cent of respondents enjoy watching YouTube and more than 28 per cent like to play games and spend time on a computer. Moreover, many of them also have e-sports athletes, gamers and game-casters as their idols. Another interesting result is that the professions associated with computers, such as YouTuber and Programmer, were also popular careers among children this year.
“BNK48” was crowned by respondents as the 2019 Top Idol. YouTubers also rose high to place among the Top 5 on that list.
Repeating the findings of previous years, the survey found that Thai children still see view their parents as idols. Among celebrities, however, the favourite for this year was “BNK48”, a Thai girl group. The girls are admired for their cute appearance, singing and dancing abilities as well as their efforts.
Many Thai kids see BNK48 as a good example of making a strong commitment to develop themselves and to overcome obstacles in order to achieve their dreams and goals. The top favourite member of the group is Cherprang Areekul, the group captain.
Famous YouTuber @kaykai.salaiders was their second-favourite idol. They love her bright and funny characteristics and her talent in producing amusing clip videos. She is also seen as a diligent and grateful young lady. The third-favourite idol was Pang @zbingz, a delightful and well-known game-caster. GOT7, a South Korean boy band, ranked fourth, while Thai renowned e-sports gamers @ksdkrit, or Kritsada Pimlue, ranked fifth from his superiority in games playing.
When given the opportunity to make one wish, most chose happiness in their families and to have a long life together. Other top wishes were to be wealthy, meet their favourite idols, and pass their exams – or even better that there would be no exam at all. Other popular responses included a wish that they could have more wishes, as well as peace and happiness for Thailand similar to in Elsa’s kingdom (from the 2013 animated feature film, Frozen, from Disney).

Kids want education reform
When asked what the government should do to improve our nation’s education outcomes, the survey revealed that Thai kids would like the government to focus on a child-centred approach and enhance their talent according to each student’s preferences and abilities, as well as concentrating on teacher development.
To increase educational opportunities for Thai children, the youngsters share ideas of providing more scholarships to the poor and enough funds for educational materials in rural school. 
In addition, Thai children also suggest the government use technology in teaching and learning to improve learning efficiency and get more students engaged. They also requested a digital knowledge hub where knowledge would be available beyond just textbooks.
Furthermore, they would like the government to support computer-oriented knowledge and e-sports. They also spoke for major improvements to teaching English and other foreign languages including Chinese, Korean and Japanese. They would also like to see practice in skills for survival, including swimming, self-defence training and emergency first-aid. They see the survival training and foreign language mastery as essential to get Thai children well prepared before entering the world of work and living their future lives.

Digital skills key to future success
The Adecco Group’s Tidarat Kanchanawat, regional director, Adecco Thailand & Vietnam, sees a strong technology thread in the results. “This year’s survey indicated that Thai children nowadays are truly ‘digital natives’. They’ve grown up surrounded by digital technology, and they use them in their daily lives. This also has been reflected through the survey results that e-sports athlete and game-casters became top-five careers choices and there are famous e-sports athletes and game-casters who are Thai Children’s idols.”
The children’s career views are “thought-provoking,” said Tidarat. “Most of them feel that the happiest career is the career that allows them to do what they love and are capable of. And they use this as the motivation in choosing their dream job. This year, we’ve seen that Thai children know a wide variety of careers based on their interests. We’ve seen a number of new careers coming up in this survey, such as a Rapper, Paleontologist, YouTuber, Choreographer, Car Racer, Game-caster, Diver, Entrepreneur, etc.
“Furthermore, we notice that Thai children these days have become more attentive in improving their skills, especially in foreign languages and technology-related skills. We should help support developing these skills, as they essential skills that will enable them to cope with future changes and challenges,” Tidarat continued.
“Today, the world of work is changing rapidly. In the future, 60 per cent of the population will work in jobs that don’t exist today. It is, therefore, very important that parents, schools, and related-public sectors collaborate in developing children’s skills according to their preference and capabilities. It is also necessary to develop skills that are required for this digital world and to bring in technology to support their life-long learning. These would prepare our children as the supreme asset in developing our nation in this digital age.”
 

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