Educational reforms fall flat in 2015

THAILAND has spent another year talking about how to improve its education without really achieving much.

Now that 2015 is coming to a close, it is quite clear that the high expectations about real educational reform will not be fulfilled in the near future.

The current government, led by General Prayut Chan-o-cha, has vowed to reform the country for the better. So when the now-defunct National Reform Council (NRC) submitted its proposal for the country’s educational reform to the government in August, many educators were excited, believing that big changes would finally be realised.

But after four months have passed, nothing concrete has come to light about the proposals that Prayut himself received from the NRC.

“After we submitted the proposal, things remained pretty much the same,” NRC member Associate Professor Prapapat Niyom said.

The government has said the National Reform Steering Assembly, which has just been established, will help to ensure reforms, including the education sector will move ahead.

But not all educators are convinced.

Instead of making moves such as decentralisation, which are recommended by the proposal, key government figures and top education officials are now trying to establish a |single command structure making the permanent secretary for Education the ultimate decision-maker for the country’s whole educational sector.

“It’s hard to expect any real change if people involved still stick with the same old perspective,” Prapapat said.

She pointed out that those involved should understand that just a few piecemeal changes would never deliver real permanent reform.

“We need a holistic approach and a major overhaul,” she said.

Her comments reflected developments in the educational arena over the past year. Apart from the serious discussions that educators and many relevant figures engaged in to prepare a final proposal for reform, the government did take some significant steps to improve Thai education. Yet those efforts were apparently not integrated well enough to drive real change.

The government, for example, has come up with an initiative to reduce class time and offer more extracurricular activities with the goal of promoting children’s well-rounded development.

Under the new plan, the hours of academic classes will be cut from 30-35 hours a week to 22 hours a week for elementary schools and from 35 to 27 hours for secondary schools. Classes will finish earlier at 2pm so that the last two hours can be used for extracurricular activities. This new plan is now being implemented at about 4,000 schools, which joined on a voluntary basis during its pivotal initial phase.

While this initiative springs out of a good intention and is for a good cause, it reflects that the government over the past year focused on certain aspects of an educational overhaul not on more comprehensive aspects yet. 

For example, if the Education Ministry reduces class hours, it needs to adjust its curriculum too. Otherwise some components in the educational system will make gains, yet other core goals will suffer setbacks.

In addition, the Education Ministry at the very least needs to improve its evaluation system for student, teacher 

 and school performance.

Despite such flaws, on a bright note, since the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) came to power, continuity has not been lacking in useful projects like the Distance Learning TV (DDTV) project.

Although Prayut named General Dapong Ratanasuwan as education minister in place of Admiral Narong Pipatanasai in August, Dapong has not tried to downplay educational projects that were highlighted during Narong’s tenure.

Under Dapong’s leadership, the Education Ministry has continued to pursue Prayut’s ideas of promoting history classes and DDTV.

DDTV, which is based on one of His Majesty the King’s initiatives, has proven to be very useful to schools across the country, particularly the small ones.

Such projects and their continuity are of course good signs. Yet if Thailand really hopes to overhaul its educational sector for the better, it must do it in a decisive and comprehensive way. The government needs to understand that the same old approach will hardly make any difference.

It’s time to use a new and holistic approach to manage the country’s educational sector.

According to a study by researchers at Thammasat University and the University of Thai Chamber of Commerce, Thailand has adequate resources for the provision of educational services – but it has not yet increased the quality of education.

In the biggest-ever grading of education quality world-wide, Thailand ranked far behind two other Southeast Asian countries.

Compiled by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) based on the performance of 15-year-olds on math and science, the ranking lists Thailand at the 47th rank, while Singapore’s youth emerged as the best brains in the world and Vietnam did nicely at the 12th ranking. Such a ranking reflects that Thailand cannot take its educational reform for granted anymore.

The New Year is coming. Let’s hope the government will focus on real reform and put adequate resources to better use next year.

 

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