Many in education sector excited by the prospect of NRC reforms
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EDUCATION is one of 11 areas that will undergo a major overhaul via the soon-to-be-established National Reform Council.
People in education are clearly excited about the upcoming reform, with the NRC-member selection process already attracting more than 700 applications from the education sector alone.
The successful candidates will join the 250-member NRC over the coming year to define the country’s education future.
Sompong Jitradub Su-angkhavathin, one of the applicants, said that if selected he would encourage NRC members to analyse and synthesise education research within one month to identify what really needed to be done.
“The NRC will be of crucial importance. It will set directions and policies for education reform,” he said.
Sompong himself wants to push for greater budget efficiency at the Education Ministry because, while the country’s education budget keeps growing, the quality of education has not improved.
He also recommends changes in the process of producing teachers, downsizing of the ministry, and the engagement of all stakeholders in education services.
“I know reforming the country’s education sector within one year is not easy. So, I would like to encourage the education minister and his two deputies to listen to all sectors, and a key part is that they must ensure education officials welcome real reform with open arms.
“Officials must understand that the Education Ministry is not the main agency for organising education services anymore. It’s just one of the stakeholders. It must engage the people’s sector, local communities and businesses in providing education services,” he stressed.
The Thailand Development Research Institute has also long recommended that the country needs to reform the education sector in a number of aspects, particularly in terms of budget use, accountability and the more efficient use of resources.
According to the TDRI, schools
should be made accountable for the quality of education they provide.
They should gain administrative freedom so that they can hire proper personnel, and more funds should be allocated to schools with economic and social problems.
Small schools, for example, should get the money needed to improve their services, instead of receiving a meagre budget based on the current per-head subsidy, said the institute.
Deputy Education Minister Krissanapong Kirtikara, who is also an adviser to King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thon Buri, has set his sights on improving the country’s vocational education.
“Vocational skills are important. We need to address them properly,” he said.
The NIDA model
The National Institute for Development Administration has also recently unveiled its ideas about how the country’s education should be reformed.
The NIDA education model spans various topics, as it presses for the replacement of the per-head subsidy system with a teacher/student-ratio-based system, the merging of two loan funds, basic-education decentralisation and the reintroduction of the class-repetition system.
Professor Vichit Lorchirachoonkul, who chairs the NIDA working team for its education-reform model, said Thai education should scrap the per-head subsidy system, which had led to institutions taking in too many students in order to attract subsidies, while some necessary fields – like the education of autistic children – had no students.
It should be replaced by a system that allocates budget according to a teacher-per-students ratio, because if there were not enough teachers, the institutes would not be able to take in too many students.
Vichit said the model also suggested that the Income Contingency Loan scheme and the Student Loan Fund should be merged and run under criteria based on both funds’ best features.
Moreover, basic education should be decentralised to responsible education-service areas, while curriculum content should emphasise the needs of each area, he said.
Small schools should not be merged, he added, but should employ local-wisdom experts to aid their teaching.
In addition, the assessment of schools should be focused on the benefits gained by students, while the class-repetition system should be reintroduced, as it had previously helped ensure education quality, said Vichit.
Teachers, however, should not be the only ones blamed for students having to repeat classes, he added.
The NIDA professor also urged the government to create motivating incentives for teachers, such as free accommodation, so that good and capable persons would want to become basic-education teachers.
National tests at Prathom 6, Mathayom 3 and Mathayom 6 levels should be used to assess students’ performance, and the Mathayom 6 scores could replace the cumulative grade-point average (GPAX), he said, adding that the Ordinary National Educational Test (O-Net) should be cancelled.
He also said the GAT/PAT (General Aptitude Test/ Professional and Academic Aptitude Test) should still be used for university admission.
Meanwhile, dual-vocation education would be in place, according to the NIDA model, and Vocational Education Commission members should come from various occupations, he said.
Finally, the Office of Higher Education Commission should be separated from the Education Ministry to become an independent agency with less administrative steps.
