Thai education

19 Feb 2024
The latest results of PISA have once again grabbed attention in Thailand after the performance of Thai students hit an unprecedented low over the two decades. Poor performance has persisted for generations and serves as just the visible tip of an iceberg where underlying problems are frozen. Topped with the passed largest allocation to Education Ministry, this raises doubts in society as to why the quality of Thai education continues to tread water.
8 Jan 2019
Even though school uniforms are now obsolete in most developed countries, they are still the subject of serious discussion in Thailand. Bangkok Christian College has launched an initiative to allow students to choose what they wear.
15 Mar 2017
Well it didn’t take long for the other shoe to fall. The recent Ordinary National Educational Test (O-Net) in Thai language contained what could have been a bolt from the blue for the Thai schooling system.  Instead it turned out to be a bolt that ever more firmly fixes Thai education into authoritarian irrelevance.
11 Jan 2017
The seminal Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson is one of those works which joins up dots you had never before thought were even on the same page.  And hence the insights.  It appears on graduate reading lists for all manner of degrees. But it is a dense text.  And should a successful product of the Thai education system, a student accepted for a graduate programme overseas, be asked to read it, the result is unlikely to be satisfactory.  Thai students don’t do dense texts.
22 Mar 2016
Amid criticisms of proposals to centralise Thai education via the latest draft of the constitution, the junta leader invoked his absolute power to slash local teacher committees and form a regional education reform committee[AB1] . On Monday, 21 March 2016, the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) Orders No.10/2016 and 11/2016 were published on the website of the Royal Gazette.
21 Mar 2016
Despite efforts by the military government to improve the appalling state of Thai education, reformers point out that the new draft constitution will plunge Thailand deeper into an education crisis.
15 Mar 2016
Another school year over and time to reflect for a moment on all that budget wasted, and time and effort, and the young minds.  So sad. The Thai education system, you might have thought, would be near the top of the to-do list for any government that comes to power speaking the language of reform.  The whole shebang is so dysfunctional that anybody and his mother can pick holes in it, the latest critic being Supachai Panitchpakdi, ex-head of the WTO and UNCTAD.
10 Mar 2016
According to education expert Vachararutai Boontinand the current Thai education system is failing to foster active citizens under Thailand’s democratic system of governance despite attempts to implement democratic principles into school curriculums, On Wednesday, 9 March 2016, Thammasat University’s Tha Prachan Campus organised a centennial anniversary event to honor Puey Ungphakorn, a late former rector of Thammasat University and governor of the Central Bank of Thailand, renowned for his role in the development of Thai politics and economy.
22 Jun 2015
As the teacher worshipping season approaches in Thailand, a group of Thai students led by renowned student activist Netiwit has proposed new ways of paying respect to teachers to replace the long-practised ceremony which glorifies the importance of hierarchy in Thai society.    Last week, the group led by Netiwit Chotipatpaisan, a student activist who advocates Thai education reform, published a short film parody of the ‘Wai Khru’ ceremony, a ceremony where students pay respect to teachers by prostrating themselves before their teachers with a bouquet of
22 Jul 2013
Renowned historian Thongchai Winichakul gave a stinging critique of the Thai study of history at the opening ceremony of the Southeast Asian Studies Institute at Thammasat University-Rangsit on July 18, 2013. Thongchai blamed the insular Thai-style teaching of history for Thais’ ignorance and unjustified superiority complex in national history and spotty knowledge about their immediate neighbours. He contended that the extreme Thai-centrism in the study of history—the narcissistic attitude about the nature and source of the Thai identity—has been a major factor in the failure of Thai education. He calls for a more self-reflective, critical and integrated way of learning history and building knowledge, that places Thailand as a part of Southeast Asia—not a singular diamond of the region that sparkles only in the Thai mind.
22 Jul 2013
I would hate anyone to think this column was kicking a man when he is down, but the administrators of Chulalongkorn University (‘we’re number one in pink’) have once again shown a tenuous grasp of what might constitute education.
9 Jun 2013
So the Thai education system has earned itself some international publicity of the exactly the kind the Ministry of Education doesn’t want. Thomas Fuller of the New York Times got insideNawaminthrachinuthit Triam Udomsewuksa Pattanakarn inPaknam to produce an article ‘In Thailand’s Schools, Vestiges of Military Rule’

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