Learning to know the difference

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, at the official Labour Day celebration, emphasised  the “improvement of skills” for Thai workers, so a discussion of training versus education seems appropriate.

Training (improvement of skills) tells people what to do (and, for too many, what to think), while education has the goal of showing people various ways of thinking, with the ultimate goal being the pursuit of objective, in-depth thought.

To put it concisely: those who are trained become employees (the owned), while those who are educated become employers (the owners).

Training can produce a society of efficient and effective employees, but training at the expense of education relegates a society to obeying the perpetual dictates of employers from other societies. And too much emphasis on training can produce a populace that resents or even hates educated people, since the educated sometimes challenge the black-and-white notions of those who are trained, but only trained.

Training is almost always seen as a quick, easy way to success – since education requires more time and effort – but an uneducated society, no matter how well trained, will always be at the mercy of the better-educated from elsewhere.

Some might see this letter as an attack on training (obviously it is not), and that view would pretty much tend to support some of the points made in the letter.

Guy Baker

Bangkok