So, where is our master plan?

In many foreign countries such as South Korea, such a blueprint is on the national agenda. No political office holders can change it. Details in implementation may be adjusted in response to changing circumstances but the path started for the great goals must be the same.
This sort of blueprint has improved the quality of educational services in several countries already. Thailand’s southern neighbour has jumped on the bandwagon too.
Earlier this month, Malaysia launched its blueprint for excellence in education, which was the product of extensive research and public engagement.
The vision of “Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025” has been developed against historical starting points and international benchmarks.
According to this 268-page outline, every Malaysian student must attain six key attributes – knowledge, thinking skills, leadership skills, bilingual proficiency, ethics, and spirituality and national identity.
The three specific objectives and approaches for the blueprint are as follows:
1.  Understanding the current performance and challenges of the Malaysian education system with a focus on improving access to education, raising standards (quality), closing achievement gaps (equity), promoting unity among students and maximising system efficiency;
2. Establishing a clear vision and aspirations for individual students and the education system as a whole over the next 13 years;
3.  Outlining a comprehensive transformation programme for the system, including key changes to the ministry, which will allow it to meet new demands and rising expectations, and to ignite and support overall civil service transformation.
The Malaysian Blueprint suggests 11 strategic and operational shifts that would be required to achieve the vision of the nation’s future and success on which depends fundamentally the knowledge, skills and competencies of its people.

The blueprint means that by 2025, Malaysia’s human resources will change for the better in the following way:
Students: “They will make significant gains in their development irrespective of their background. … When they leave school, they will have world-class knowledge and skills, strong moral values and will be capable of competing with their peers in other countries.”
Teachers: “They will develop the world-class capabilities needed to facilitate desired student outcomes and gain more enjoyment and fulfilment from their jobs … that are directly linked to relevant competencies and performance.”
School leaders: “They will become excellent instructional leaders, and act as agents for change.”
Ministry officials: “They will develop as change leaders, with the skills and attributes needed to support schools.”
So, what will Thailand do? Will it stay idle and do nothing to improve its human resources’ competitiveness?
According to the report “Thailand K-12 Education System Progress and Failure” by Dr Sutham Vanichseni and Associates (May 2012), Thailand’s education system has failed to achieve its goals of providing quality education for all in spite of efforts in the last 30 years.
The report analysed the whole educational system and reported the following key messages:
- Thailand’s educational policies and strategies are incoherent with structure and capability of elements on the ground. Reform has been legislation-driven without strategic implementation mechanisms.
-  Thailand’s collective capacity in basic education is simply weak, a result of past policies and developments. Communities and society at large still contribute little to education development.
- One-size-fits-all policies have not worked, while fragmented interventions or policies have proved to be ineffective. All elements are interconnected in a large complex social system.
-  Analyses of individual elements and their relationships have revealed key issues that can form a basis for dialogue and conversation in system development.
-  Causes of failure in education system are failures in coherency, structure and governance, capacity and capability, strategy, policy, process and assessment. Interventions will have to take all these into considerations as a system of policies or interventions.
 I would like to point out that the incoherent educational philosophy, policies and plans stem from the fact that Thailand’s national education plans had no clear goals. They offer only broad guidelines and little else.
Because Thailand has had too little in-depth research and assessment, its education strategy is ineffective and incoherent with system conditions.
Policies do not always follow philosophy or plans. Politicians also love to meddle with educational projects to seek media attention. Presently, many of the projects are clearly politically motivated. Policy evaluation is also rare.
Thailand will need to change the way it has handled its educational problems. One of the first steps is to develop an educational blueprint and stick to it.
No matter who comes to power, this blueprint must be observed so that the great goals can be achieved.
Thailand needs quality educational services to get quality human resources and great competitiveness in the increasingly globalised world.
So, all stakeholders in Thailand must come forward now and join hands in pushing for Thailand’s educational blueprint. Politicians with the guts to support such a move will definitely deserve praise.
I really hope that all Thai stakeholders can do this together. Don’t wait till it’s too late!

Priyakorn Pusawiro
Learning scientist, Computer Engineering Department
King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi
[email protected]