There could be some commentators who could argue strongly in favor of the existence of
quality because despite its flaws, it had reached a number of other educational objectives and
sub-objectives, which probably was true. Furthermore, if we take into consideration the quality
question during the two decades 1978-1999, after the second reform, there exists little
information on whether education really did serve life and society. At the same time, we should
be reminded that a decade or so before the second major reform, the modernizing nation-state of
Thailand was under the rule of military junta backed by the United States. The nation was
fighting against the Communist insurgent war domestically and joining American troops in the
Indochina war offering her soil for American air bases from which lethal bombing missions were
launched. Modernization of Thailand during this period, itself the extension of the process
beginning right after the end of World War II, and particularly intensified after the crucial 1947
military coup, meant Westernization by which Westernization meant Americanization.
Economically and socially speaking, the second educational reform occurred toward