How Buddhism can salvage Thai education
I am not Thai, but I use the word “we” because I live here and I am the caregiver of a 13-year-old Thai student and am thus willingly involved.
One of the members of Thailand’s English-teaching elite attended the EdTex education fair last year and published an article about all the plans discussed to improve Thai education. In short, the bottom line literally sounded like this: “Thai education will never improve unless critical thinking is encouraged.”
In 2006 and 2013, Minister Chaturon wanted to introduce a change that could be seen as the first step in modifying the rote learning system, starting with the way the Thai language is taught. In 2015, Minister Teerakiat presented ideas to replace the multiple-choice system by an open-questions variant, which would be the beginning of a new era.
I do realise that changes have a propagation time, but why are the public schools overlooking or ignoring the available Buddhist critical thinking teachings – the Middle Path, the Upekkha and last but not least, the Kalama Sutta.
Long ago we borrowed foreign university templates, but the Buddhist teachings have been around since Socrates and Plato presented their “Socratic questioning”. What is holding us back this time? We don’t have to borrow and we are sitting on top of the critical-thinking teaching tools.
Every serious stakeholder knows that most (costly) projects aimed at improving our education and facilitating the transition to Thailand 4.0 will be doomed as long as this vulnerable aspect is not tackled properly and from scratch.
In 2012 Sukanya Kaowiwattanakul published the article “Revitalisation of critical thinking in Thailand”, describing its role as well as three other main factors that affect success in developing students’ critical-thinking skills: Thai culture, the school system and religion. The real place of reasoning and logic in Buddhism is also demonstrated, including a recommendation for the ways of promoting critical thinking within Thai culture.
The article is six years old but can still be a guideline for change. I sincerely hope that Kamol Rodklai, chief of the Office of the Education Council, will not ignore this “Thailand 4.0-saving vaccine”.
Dirk Sumter
