Obec to continue Worawat's initiatives despite minister's transfer

Although the man who promoted this year as the English Speaking Year would be gone, Office of the Basic Education Commission (Obec) chief Chinnapat Poomirat vowed to continue the English promotion campaign. They would start with the English Canteen pilot project, requiring students to speak English at canteens. It will be started next week.

Worawat told The Nation over the phone that he accepted the move because he personally thought the premier’s orders would be implemented accordingly and said that his successor would pick up where he left off.

Worawat, who served as Education Minister for four months, also set the curriculum direction to be job-based to meet the demands of the economy. He was one of those backing the plan to hand out computer tablets and PCs to Prathom students, despite criticism that it was inappropriate. 

Worawat skipped office yesterday, and assigned Deputy Education Minister Boonreun Srithares to preside at a press conference for the Vocational Education Institute establishment on his behalf.

Boonreun urged Suchart, whom she called a capable person, to return to the tradition of delegating workloads in columns, according to each office’s field of work, rather than in regions like Worawat did. She said that having Roi Et MP Sakda Khongphetch as a deputy minister of Education was appropriate, as he was a veteran MP having worked with people from all walks of life, including teachers. The change of many high positions wouldn’t affect the ministry’s work, as civil servants were on them.

In the mean time, Chinnapat said the Obec executive meeting yesterday thought the English promotion campaign should be more concrete hence Obec would next week kick off the English Canteen pilot project, requiring students to negotiate food purchase in English, at the schools that were deemed ready by the Obec English Language Institute.

The meeting, preparing for the Obec schools’ Mathayom 1 and 4 student recruit, ordered 280 highly competitive schools to formulate and submit as soon as possible their student recruit plans, which Obec also preferred them to expand student number to be up to 50 seats per class, rather the current 40 seats. On February 8-9, another Obec meeting would discuss the highly-competitive schools’ student recruit plans.

Chinnapat said the more-practical and job-oriented Mathayom programme was a good idea, as it made education more in line with the economic context and equipped students with appropriate knowledge, skills and proficiencies. He said the programme had made much progress. About 1,000 schools would be prototypes for this job-oriented education management within the academic year 2012, while other schools could join later.