So much revision, but Thai education system still failing

Political analysts foresee a bleak future for Education Minister Suchart Tadathamrongvej. He’s likely to be replaced soon by someone like Chaturon Chaisaeng. An education minister’s tenure is often short-lived. The governments of Thaksin Shinawatra and his proxies have gone through more than 10 education ministers. The previous incumbent, Woravat Auapinyakulstayed, lost his job after only five months. 

The point is that our national education policy is going nowhere amid this lack of consistency, direction and long-term vision. This puts Thailand’s education system in a precarious position. The picture looks dismal given the breakneck changes.

The only slogan that has reverberated through the education world under the Yingluck-led government seems to be “free tablet PCs for Grade 1 students”. This is, transparently, another of the Pheu Thai Party’s populist schemes. The debate still rages as to whether the device is better suited to Grade 1 or Grade 4 pupils.

Beyond the tablet rhetoric, there’s simply nothing of real significance in the way of education reform, which is regrettable given that Suchart has been at the helm for almost two years.

The problem is that every new minister comes up with a new set of policies. Woravat, minister from August 2011 to January this year, arrived in office with a promising policy of boosting students’ English-language proficiency by hiring native English speakers as teachers under his “English Speaking Year” campaign.  

The campaign stalled when Suchart took over the ministry and suddenly promoted the teaching of Mandarin as a third foreign language at all schools, under the Office of Basic Education Commission’s supervision.

As every Thai schoolchild knows, English is difficult, but Mandarin is even worse. We still don’t have enough qualified English teachers either. With the best intentions, politicians are keen on promoting the teaching of foreign languages at school as we look forward to the launch of the Asean Economic Community.

The implementation of this policy is a long process. It’s not right to promote the policy before we first have enough qualified teachers to carry it out. It’s also unclear how successful the English-teaching campaign has been so far. Fresh university graduates still have trouble putting a sentence together correctly in English.

The problems of the education system are chronic. It’s easy to blame the low quality of our teachers. They are notorious for being debt-ridden because teaching remains a low-paying job. The teaching quality in Thailand is in large part questionable. Suchart has just revoked the permit for the private E-sarn University in Khon Kaen for selling diplomas. It will close at the end of this month, marooning more than 8,000 students.

Thailand’s top education institutions are mostly concentrated in Bangkok. In the provinces, schools lack quality teachers as well as facilities like libraries, laboratories and sports grounds. Schools in the three southernmost provinces suffer these problems and more. Just last week in the deep South, a schoolteacher was shot dead by insurgents. Before that schools were torched.

Suchart wants to boost the number of teachers in the South by 10 per cent and provide scholarships to the children of victims of the unrest. That’s just another knee-jerk reaction to an emergency situation, hardly a holistic approach to solving the education dilemma.

Instead, the minister needs to establish a long-term goal to improve the national education system and streamline the standards of all schools. But that’s just what he can’t do in his present capacity, because, sooner rather than later, someone else will take his place.

Thailand’s competitiveness depends to a large degree on the quality of its education. No matter how many ministers come and go, a long-term national education policy is needed to lift the quality of our teaching personnel and tuition. The best reform begins with the Education Ministry.