The standard of education in Thailand is an absolute disgrace. I am a teacher at a large secondary school in Nonthaburi and I have taught at other schools around Thailand for 5 years. Frank is right when he says that the students only learn by rote and then vomit it back out on their exam paper. They don’t actually learn anything in the process. For some reason, the "educators" think that copying words from the whiteboard into their notebooks is learning - it isn't. I also blame the teachers who encourage the students to copy all their work from other students by not telling them to stop.
The Thai school day is ridiculously long and filled with too many subjects and too many extra-curricula activities. The students have never been encouraged to think, to be curious about things, to wonder about things, to ask questions about things. All they do is soak up what their teacher bores into them, which is very little.
I hear so much about 'Ready for ASEAN' - Thailand will never be ready for ASEAN and it will always be last, behind Myanmar and Laos. I love Thailand but I worry about the children who deserve a better education than the rubbish they are given now.