Thai education system needs fundamental reform
Published: 9 Apr 2014 at 00.39 | Viewed: 5,312 | Comments: 17
Newspaper section: News
Writer: John Draper
Thai society, as part of the current "reform process", is accepting proposals to improve its education system. However, piecemeal ideas are not going to last long in the face of systemic failures and the...
What is needed is a guiding educational philosophy that adds something more progressive to the current education system. The educator and educational philosopher Paulo Freire, building on the thinking...
Obviously, it can be reassuring for children of a certain age to know that they exist in a clear power structure controlled by notions of family, patron/client relationships and seniority. However, in...
This Culture of Silence obstructs what both Dewey and Freire agreed is the main point of education: the improvement of society — such as the community round a school, or the town that has a university...
Freire proposed as a solution "Critical Pedagogy". Many Thais will have heard of "critical thinking". Critical thinking, as applied in a classroom to a reading exercise, asks the basic "wh" questions of...
Critical Pedagogy applies critical thinking to a whole society and is essentially a problem-based, learner-oriented, rational and humanistic attempt to break down the Culture of Silence.
Someone viewing the Thai education system through the lens of Critical Pedagogy would see systemic problems that need to be resolved. For example, the Thai education system is heavily militarised, and...
Teachers do not need to have uniforms that make them look like military officers. Medals can look fine on normal clothing.
In turn, university students should have the option not to wear uniforms that essentially make them look like schoolchildren except, perhaps, on special occasions such as Father’s Day. This does not mean...
In addition, scouting as a mandatory subject at high school should be reconsidered. Schoolchildren are already heavily regimented through other activities, such as saluting the flag. Also, Thailand already...
These might sound like impossible demands from someone who does not understand "Thainess". But some sectors of society have already adapted their Thainess and decided to act. Take doctors and healthcare...
In terms of educational subjects, most in the medical profession learned a hundred years ago that anatomy needed real subjects (corpses). The study of anatomy led in turn to the development of surgery...
A decent medical education system takes this a step further. It asks doctors and healthcare professionals to examine wider society and through community-based research so comes to epidemiology — the study...
And then Critical Pedagogy goes one step beyond: it asks doctors and healthcare professionals what the existing power structures are that keep those people poor and unhealthy. And it asks them to, if necessary,...
Crucially, Thai doctors and healthcare professionals have recently become more politicised than ever before, with the majority supporting the PDRC reform process in the face of what they view as overwhelming...
This involvement is because of a genuine, rational and humanistic position based on reasoning and love. It is what Paulo Freire called "Conscientisation" — an awakening to the fact that corruption, unnecessary...
So, doctors and health care professionals are currently leading the way in attacking full on the Culture of Silence that protects the machine politicians, the patron/client system, and the culture of corruption...
If doctors can, others can, too. The teachers and university lecturers of Thailand are, as a body, a huge potential for social change. If just a large minority of them can take what they already know of...
This route is not without danger. Schoolteachers following such a path to, for example, protect their local forest, have been shot and killed in Thailand. This is where the politically more powerful public...
And this danger is also why there needs to be something more — a people’s movement, a political party brave enough to fundamentally change Thailand’s education system — and so wider society.
……….John Draper is Project Officer, Isan Culture Maintenance and Revitalisation Programme at College of Local Administration, Khon Kaen University.
Thai education system needs fundamental reform
Published: 9 Apr 2014 at 00.39 | Viewed: 5,312 | Comments: 17
Newspaper section: News
Writer: John Draper
Thai society, as part of the current "reform process", is accepting proposals to improve its education system. However, piecemeal ideas are not going to last long in the face of systemic failures and the...
What is needed is a guiding educational philosophy that adds something more progressive to the current education system. The educator and educational philosopher Paulo Freire, building on the thinking...
Obviously, it can be reassuring for children of a certain age to know that they exist in a clear power structure controlled by notions of family, patron/client relationships and seniority. However, in...
This Culture of Silence obstructs what both Dewey and Freire agreed is the main point of education: the improvement of society — such as the community round a school, or the town that has a university...
Freire proposed as a solution "Critical Pedagogy". Many Thais will have heard of "critical thinking". Critical thinking, as applied in a classroom to a reading exercise, asks the basic "wh" questions of...
Critical Pedagogy applies critical thinking to a whole society and is essentially a problem-based, learner-oriented, rational and humanistic attempt to break down the Culture of Silence.
Someone viewing the Thai education system through the lens of Critical Pedagogy would see systemic problems that need to be resolved. For example, the Thai education system is heavily militarised, and...
Teachers do not need to have uniforms that make them look like military officers. Medals can look fine on normal clothing.
In turn, university students should have the option not to wear uniforms that essentially make them look like schoolchildren except, perhaps, on special occasions such as Father’s Day. This does not mean...
In addition, scouting as a mandatory subject at high school should be reconsidered. Schoolchildren are already heavily regimented through other activities, such as saluting the flag. Also, Thailand already...
These might sound like impossible demands from someone who does not understand "Thainess". But some sectors of society have already adapted their Thainess and decided to act. Take doctors and healthcare...
In terms of educational subjects, most in the medical profession learned a hundred years ago that anatomy needed real subjects (corpses). The study of anatomy led in turn to the development of surgery...
A decent medical education system takes this a step further. It asks doctors and healthcare professionals to examine wider society and through community-based research so comes to epidemiology — the study...
And then Critical Pedagogy goes one step beyond: it asks doctors and healthcare professionals what the existing power structures are that keep those people poor and unhealthy. And it asks them to, if necessary,...
Crucially, Thai doctors and healthcare professionals have recently become more politicised than ever before, with the majority supporting the PDRC reform process in the face of what they view as overwhelming...
This involvement is because of a genuine, rational and humanistic position based on reasoning and love. It is what Paulo Freire called "Conscientisation" — an awakening to the fact that corruption, unnecessary...
So, doctors and health care professionals are currently leading the way in attacking full on the Culture of Silence that protects the machine politicians, the patron/client system, and the culture of corruption...
If doctors can, others can, too. The teachers and university lecturers of Thailand are, as a body, a huge potential for social change. If just a large minority of them can take what they already know of...
This route is not without danger. Schoolteachers following such a path to, for example, protect their local forest, have been shot and killed in Thailand. This is where the politically more powerful public...
And this danger is also why there needs to be something more — a people’s movement, a political party brave enough to fundamentally change Thailand’s education system — and so wider society.
……….John Draper is Project Officer, Isan Culture Maintenance and Revitalisation Programme at College of Local Administration, Khon Kaen University.
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