Thai Student

Education in Thailand

What about education in Thailand?

Thailand’s budget for education represents has much as the one spent by the French government, yet Thailand still ranks almost last of the 10 Asean countries -that is Thai education bottoms out of eight Asean countries surveyed (behind Cambodia and Vietnam). And just to get an wilder idea of Thai education performances, OECD Programme for International Student Assessment ranked Thailand 47 out of 76 countries for average performance on student achievement tests in math and science, whereas Singapore was ranked 1 out of 76 and Vietnam 12 out of 76 (Vietnam being ranked 7 out of the 10 Asean countries).

Sadly, and in despite of all the effort from the different governments, it does not look like the education in Thailand will improve anytime soon unless parents get access to deep and selective educative information in Thai language (which sataban.com and sataban.asia aim to do).

Nevertheless, I do believe this will take place some days and although this might take a lot of time, and perhaps even another generation, it is clear that the real change will come from within: with the students, parents, and teachers. By informing and educating the parents, helping and supporting Thai teachers in their daily routines while enhancing and scaffolding training of efficient educative and administrative staff at school.

Routines and Education in Thailand

Discipline is a key when thinking about Thai education as there are quite a few routines at school:

_Morning speech
_Morning flag ceremony and national anthem
_Morning movement activities
_Morning song to calm down and relax before starting school
_Marching to the classrooms
_Lining up in front of classrooms
_Greeting/”Waiing” and saluting each teacher at every moment of the day
_Eating without talking (with a musical background)
_Wearing a type of uniform and/or a color according to the days of the week
_Every Friday about 3pm, at least at the school I am working, children and teachers stand outside of the classroom, stand straight and sing the Thai Royal Anthem.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *