The Thai Schooling System Is Failing
Thailand schools are focusing on memorization and core classes instead of focusing on individuality and creativity, along with averages being shockingly low and rural areas suffering.
Schooling issues Children in schools in Thailand are becoming carbon copies of each other. Some schools require students to have specific ways to dress, tie their hair and even have it at a certain length. The teachers can even come up with a student them and start cutting their hair if it is not at the required length. Schools in Thailand focus on many less important things yet there are almost no repercussions for children being late or leaving trash around the classroom. Yet this is only the tip of the iceberg, in Thailand the teacher’s base everything of memorization and make children memorize large pieces of work and concepts. Teachers also often change due dates and when projects are assigned without any notice.
There is very little consistency to what the teachers teach and students are sometimes taught in languages that they are not familiar with.In fact about half of the population is taught in a language other than their first language. Averages in schooling in Thailand are incredibly low. The national average grades in 2015/16 where 27.8% in English, 24.9% in math and 31.
6% science. This is below the world average and shows that the Thai education is failing. Rural Concerns In rural areas especially the people are suffering because schooling is too expensive. Even though they are free families have to buy books, supplies, uniforms and more. Overall this can add up to a large sum of money. Some people only earn $10 dollars a day so buying school supplies are not affordable.
School is compulsory for nine years but people often drop out because their families need help farming and supplies for the family. This happens in rural areas especially as the pay is so low and many people are poor. “Most of these kids will drop out of school at 15 to help their families,” said a local preschool teacher in Udon Thani, Thailand. Some children don’t even stay in school that long, children quit school as early as second grade to help their families because the average pay is so low. The education system overall is also worse in rural areas. Thailand only spends 4% of their GDP on education which is low in comparison to countries like New Zealand who spend 6.
4%. This is bad but even worse for rural areas as most of the money is spent on schools in Bangkok. Solutions The World Bank, OECD and other international reports have been giving advice to Thai schools and the government on getting better motivating teachers, making teacher training relevant to student needs and investing in technology. If the government takes action to these things and pays more attention to rural areas then there could be an improvement in the near future.
