Improving education quality faces many challenges, academics warn

But while this policy is praised by academics, they argue that this mission alone would not be enough to upgrade overall education.

Many more accumulated problems and new challenges are awaiting him after the New Year celebrations. The academics recently gave useful advice on what the minister should pursue to improve the quality of education in separate interviews with The Nation.

They urged the minister to give priority to teacher development and quality improvement. 

Professor Pavich Tongroach, chairman of Nakhon Phanom University Council and Kalasin Rajabhat University Council, said education in Thailand faced crises – involving quality, management, teacher production, vocational education and higher education. 

The problem of quality is reflected in low scores obtained by Thai students in basic education in international and national tests. The Education Ministry has had problems with management both at the top and lower levels of educationalservice area offices. A shortage of qualified teachers is also a major problem. Lack of student quantity and quality has threatened vocational education for years. Higher education also has problems with quality of research and teaching, Pavich added. 

Associate Professor Witayakorn Chiengkul, honorary dean of the Social Innovation College at Rangsit University, said educationalservice area offices had much influence – and many had been found to abuse this power. There was also nepotism. 

Pavich urged Woravat to start dealing with such educational crises urgently. 

Witayakorn called on the minister to improve the quality of education by continuing the second decade of education reform – especially in Englishlanguage literacy – since the Asean Economic Community (AEC) is due to materialise in a few years. 

“The Education Ministry is focusing on quantity and buying things rather than quality. If the minister really wants to move forward on quality improvement, he must study research conducted by the Office of the Education Council that clearly reveals flaws and problems in Thailand’s education system and set up projects to solve them directly,” he said. 

Chainarong Indharameesup, local chairman of Boyden Global Executive Search and a member of the education reform policy committee, said: “I want him to promote numeracy and reading literacy seriously. They are of fundamental importance to other subjects. If students cannot calculate, read or write fluently, how will they be able to develop their knowledge further when studying more complicated subjects? 

“The ministry does not need to pay a huge amount of its budget to improve numeracy and literacy. It must tell teachers to teach students in related subjects more strictly and pay more attention to assess their performance. Then, it should host a campaign to praise and award schools with improved performance,” he added.

Chainarong also wanted Woravat to implement the education reform plan, saying educational experts, academics, educators and other relevant people had brainstormed and come up with good solutions to upgrade the quality of education. He did not want the plan to be ignored. 

“The ministry should make education matter to people in every sector. Educational problems have occurred because [the ministry] has taken the role of education development from society and communities for 20 years and done the development itself, alone. It’s time to turn the responsibility over to people in other sectors.”

Associate Professor Sombat Noparak, president of the Thailand Education Deans Council, urged Woravat to set a clear goal of quality teacher production and continue supporting the new breed of project that produces quality teachers – since the quality of students depended on teachers’ teaching.