Education simply isn’t taken seriously in Thailand
Finnish researchers have identified inequality of educational opportunities in urban and rural Thailand as the main problem in the Thai education system.
“If you have a lot of inequalities in your education system, it makes it that much more complicated to increase the quality of education,” reports education expert Pasi Sahlberg.
Expert in pedagogical resources Tiina Malste adds:
“Only applicants who score highly in their exams and have a positive attitude toward teaching will be selected for the teacher training programme each year. All applicants must hold at least a master’s degree in education.”
These are the biggest problems in Thai education system, but it seems that the government and society as a whole are unwilling to make changes to improve this situation.
I myself have had a taste of Thai educational culture and found it to be disastrous. I enrolled at a martial arts school in Chiang Mai only to discover that the owner and teachers are not serious about transferring knowledge – teaching isolated moves rather than underlying concepts, overloading classes with students, failing to teach according to students’ level or monitor their progress with proper exams.
The instructors obviously have little or no professional training.
Al this accords with the findings of studies into wider Thai education.
Without a radical change in the mindset and behaviour of the government, educational bodies and Thai society, the outlook for education here will remain grim and gloomy!
Bielmann
Chiang Mai
