The 2013 Quality of Children s Life Revive Educational Dreams for Thai Children 0

8/12/2019 The 2013 Quality of Children s Life Revive Educational Dreams for Thai Children 0

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THE 2013QUALITY OFCHILDRENS LIFE

REVIVE EDUCATIONAL DREAMS

FOR THAI CHILDREN


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PREFACE

Human is the most valuable resource, especially childand youth. Although, in this era and the next one, the populations of

this group may be decreasing, their burdens will be explicitly tougher.

Therefore, there must be the precise mechanism for human resource

development. The formal, non-formal or alternative education must be

clear and qualified broadly with aims at learning for honest livelihood,

and for living with the whole society whereas the child and youths

competence must be developed to acquire the 21st century skills.

But, in fact, Thailands educational system has been short of quality,

and been isolated from the actual way of life and society. We rely on

the rote learning approach from the primary to tertiary levels. The

teaching approaches are out-of-date. The assessment for teachersand students are not suitable for the era. We do not have the problem-

based learning. The teachers have hardly played the role of facilitator

to widen childrens learning in order to build our learning society. We

have no development under precise goals. This book gives an analysis

of Thailands educational system in both economic and social domains

by several experts of the country. We actually hope that it benefits you

all and will be used as a database for further strategic and educationalplanning, and for learning to improve our human resources.

Our thanks given to

Dr. Suriyadeo Tripathi

Director of the National Institute for Child and Family Development,Mahidol University


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King Mongkuts University of Technology, Thonburi, Economist

Author

I would like to extend an appreciation to Dr. SuvitMaesincee, Phra Maha Pongnarin Thitavamso, A. Pipob Thongchai, and

A. Chatchawan Thongdeelert for their transfer of experience and time

contribution for interviews. Although these persons may not be referred

directly in this article, I would like to advise you that the interviews

of every qualified expert mentioned above play a great role in the

structural design and details of this article. Also, I would like to extend

my gratitude to A. Wimontip Musikaphan and Khun Nanthanat Songsiri

for their kindness in coordinating with the lecturers, and facilitating

my writing of this article until it is finalized. My thanks must be given to

Khun Suppanut Sasiwuttiwat and Khun Thitirat Thipsamritkul for their

help for this article, and to other persons not mentioned here.


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The 2013 Quality of Childrens Life : Revive Educational Dreams for Thai Children


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CONTENTS

I dreamed a dream

in time gone by

Now life has killed

the dream I dreamed...

How to rebuilding the dream

for Thai education

References

6

12

34

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I DREAMEDA DREAMIN TIME

GONE BY

1


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Onthe beginning of June 2013, Dr. Suvit Maesinceehad a discussion with me about education. In a part of that, Dr. Suvit

emphasized thattalking about the educational system problems based

on actual circumstances (Positive Education) was important and should

be focused, but its not enough. That is, it concentrated on many small

knots, and untied them respectively. But, at present, education had to

be turned to another side, that is, the consideration of dream we

wanted to be seen or the normative education, which would drive the

overall education forward. I extremely agree with him. Thus, this article

starts from the dream of education like the song, I Dreamed a Dream,

in Les Misrables

I dreamed a dream in time gone byWhen hope was highand life worth living.


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Did we dream about our ideal education? No. I do not ask anyscholars or policy actors. I ask everyone who is reading this article.

Keep your answer and I first present a dream of someone. He is Sir Ken

Robinson. He talked in TED Talk,a well-known TV program, that, for

him, the ideal education should serve learners in three aspects.

First, education should enable the children to develop various abilities,

and it relies on the learners.

Second,education should spark the childrens curiosity1 so that theydesire to learn willingly. The successful education should release these

abilities in children, not block them.

Third, education should promote the creativity and imagination, not

destroy them.

1 Curiosity, care and beloved are words deriving from similar roots: curiositas, curiosus andcarus. It is not surprising that motivating the learning curiosity could lead to love in learning

and attention in learning.

1

2

3


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Robinsons dream seems not strange. The dream of education

by other important masterminds likeRabindranath Tagoreor John

Deweymay not be different. For Tagore, he presented that his ideal

dream should not go against the nature. It means that it does not go

against the nature of learners while the learners must have a good

learning in the natural condition. For Dewey, he proposed his

philosophy on experience and education. He presented that the

traditional education focused on curriculums and practice based on the

preceding culture, which ruined and destroyed the learners varieties.

In contrast, he dreamed about the progressive education, which means

the education focusing on the learners need while also supporting and

liberating the teachers limitations.

In Thailand, a lot of Thai educators have identical talks to the

English (Robinson), American (Dewey) or Indian (Tagore) educators

coincidentally. For example, Chatchawan Thongdeelert, a guy

struggling for the alternative education in Thailand, had a talk with me

at the end of June 2013 that, for him, education should open the space

for the enlargement of numerous skills, not narrow skills centralized and

defined by the Ministry. This issue is fully relevant to Robinsons lecture

in 2006 in the title of School is a Place of Destroying Creativity.

For Chatchawan and Robinson, the ideal education must liberate the

learners while the learners have interactions to originate the learning


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collectively. This dream may be stated in another form as the request

for decentralizing the educational roles from state to school.

I, myself,have my dream about education. Apartfrom others mentioned above, I dream that the education should be a

kind of service to be reached by every child equitably. The education

should free the childrens learning potential, and stimulate the learners

curiosity so that they may have self-learning after the school age.

Definitely, in general, if you graduate around 22 years old and you plan

to die around 70 years old, you remain 70% of life time when no one

teaches you, except yourself. The education should prepare everyone

to either teach himself or teach others. However, the dreams of

Robinson, Tagore, Dewey, Chatchawan, and I would become true or not

in Thailand; it must consider the following facts.


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NOW LIFEHAS KILLED

THE DREAM

I DREAMED...

2


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Inthis regard, I may say that Im not the expert. Anyway, I

used to present several educational economics research papers. Each

paper tried to study the present Thai circumstances, and it should be a

milestone how far the dream and reality of Thai education are. I find out

some principal issues you should know about the present Thai educa-

tion.

Figure 1: Returns from educational investment classified by grade

Psacharopoulos & Patrinos (2004) as cited in Bank Ngarmaroonchoteand Thiraparp Fukthong (2012)

PRIMARY SECONDARY HIGHER THAN

SECONDARY


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TAKESSO LITTLE

EMPHASISON SMALLCHILDREN

THAI EDUCATION

First

Anumber of studies indicate consistently that a focus onsmall childrens development, especially kindergarten children,

significantly results to their lifetime learning. The educational

economists assess the returns from educational investment, and theyfound that the maximum returns are at the pre-school level, and such

returns would gradually decrease when the children study in higher

levels. These results are in the same direction to the returns to the

public and to children (Figure 1).2Therefore, in whatever point of view,

the educational management, when compared, focusing on small

2There is no return ratio of pre-school children, but several studies, e.g. Knudsen et al.(2006) or The White House (2013) all insist that the pre-school education is so important for

child development.


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3From Thailands data in 2006, each kindergarten child is supported approximately Baht

13,000 while a university student is supported by the government around Baht 30,000.

From my last data in 2009, Thailands basic education (kindergarten to secondary level) is

subsidized around Baht 24,000 per child. This shows better tendency if compared with thedata in 2006. However, this amount is so far from the investment at the university level at

Baht 34,000 per student (See more information at Bank Ngarmaroonchote and Thiraparb

Fukthong, 2012).

children is more important than old children. However, the government

sectors investment in Thai childrens education as classified by grade

shows the adverse outcome.3The kindergarten children receive the

least budget per learner while such educational allocation is gradually

higher and highest at the tertiary level.

The slight emphasis on small children gives two major effects.

For the first effect, the intellectual quotient (IQ) of small children will

grow so slowly when they study at higher levels because their learning

system has been slightly developed during childhood.

The additional learning at the final stage becomes more difficult. The

increased resources in old children rarely result to great educational

outcome. I emphasize that the problem is not the low IQ of small

children, but the slight shift of IQ rate. Eventually, after the primary

school level, IQ no longer grows up (Figure 2). In other countries like

Norway, at every year, the education helps increase the learners

IQ for 3.7 points on average (Steven Reinberg, 2011). Moreover, for

the second effect, this budget allocation for education may lead to

the educational gap because some children short of good learning

opportunities since their childhood (small investment by state, and

no more resources from their family) are greatly likely to leave schoolbefore the right time because they have no hope from the education.


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4 According to the study done by Thiraparb Fukthong and I in 2012, we found that if achilds family is the famer possessing no plot of land, that child would have fewer educa-

tional opportunities than other children whose parents worked in the professional areas

(engineer, doctor, architect, etc.) and management for 4.5 years. In addition, the children

whose families lived outside the municipal areas and in the northern or southern part spent

lower studying period in school significantly if compared with the children living in the

municipal areas and at the central part.

If you cannot imagine, you may think of a farmers family renting

the farm land in the northern or southern part.4 You study in a small

school located outside the municipal area. This school consists of 3

teachers and 70 students (one out of three teachers is the school

director; so there are only 2 class teachers for full teaching). You receive

the education according to your circumstances. Although you may not

pass the knowledge criteria, you will be lifted to higher classes,

generation by generation. If we are one of these children, we must

Figure 2:Intellectual Quotient (IQ) of Thai children classified by grade

Department of Mental Health (2011) as cited in Bank Ngarmaroonchote and

Thiraparp Fukthong (2012)


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decide on either continuing studies or leaving school to work for the

family. Studying may be less clear and less useful than working for the

minimum wage. This is a reason of dropping out. At present, about 45%

of Thai children at the school age decide to resign before completing

Muttayom 6 (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Dropping out of Thai children as classified by grade (% of total

classmates studying at Prathom 1 (Grade 1)

Drop out ratio

Adapted from Ammar Siamwalla et al. (2012)


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Vietnam.Adversely, the learning achievements of Thai children are

worse or not close these countries.This sign tells us that spending

some money to solve educational problems is not an exit, and does not

give the good results as it should be.

Such work also indicates that one major problemmaking the budget expenditure useless to shift the educational

quality is the teacher evaluation system that too much relies on

the documentation. Here, I would like to explain something about

this matter and you can judge it. The teachers in schools under the

supervision of the Office of the Basic Education Commission are

evaluated twice a year for the salary increase. In each evaluation,

the teachers must prepare many documents to verify their work

performance. The Teacher Watch research project surveyed the


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teachers and found that 83% of teachers answering the questionnaire

spent 20% of working hours to prepare these documents. About 10%

of teachers spent 50% of working timeto prepare the evaluation

documents. The lost working time means the loss of time used by

teachers to design new and creative class activities. The evaluation

criteria in these reports accounts for only3.3% of scores related to the

childrens academic achievements.

Phra Maha Pongnarin Thitivamso, an activist monk, talked

about his working experience with many schools to persuade the

children and teachers to do social activities. He found that the teachers

working with him were disdained that they were stupid as they might

hire any persons to prepare the documents for them instead of doing

these activities by themselves. This fact makes us realize how the

present evaluation process demolishes the teachers potential, and cut

the tie between teachers and students. Definitely, if we can remember

the dream of John Dewey, a major educator, we will find that this

evaluation process adds limitations and burden to the teachers, which

is absolutely against the Progressive Education principle proposed by

Dewey.


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MANYMISUNDERSTANDING

Whentalking about teaching, many peoplemay believe that it is a profession earning little income or bears

more difficult financial burden than other professions; therefore, theeducational upgrading requests more salaries for teachers. However,

this talk may be right or wrong. I would like to invite you to consider and

judge whether it is correct or not.

According to World Salaries(2005) collecting the data on

salaries of secondary school teachers from official documents and

international organizations (e.g. International Labor Organization), it was

found that,if internationally compared, Thai teachers achieved high

purchasing power parity if compared with other developing countries

ABOUT TEACHERS

IN THAILAND

CONCEALSOME FACTS

Third


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in the East Europe like Peru, Philippines, Czech, Mexico, Poland,

Hungary, Latvia, etc.

But,it wasstill low if compared with other developed countrieslike American, England, Germany, Australia, South Korea, Norway,

and Finland. Commonly, if compared with other countries, Thailands

teachers earned the income at the moderate level, not low level.

Nevertheless, to conclude that Thai teachers salary is free of problem

may lead to a mistake. In fact, there are 3 main problems about

teachers salary, which could be found when the teachers are dividedinto groups that will be further specified.

Figure 4: Lifetime income of teachers classified by teaching level (vertical

axis is the income in Baht and the horizontal axis is the average age)

Source: Labor Survey, The National Statistical Office, 2010, ascited in Suppanut Sasiwuttiwat (2013)


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First of all,if using the data of the National Statistical Office to calculate the lifetime

income of primary and secondary school teachers, and comparing

them with the average income of Thai people, it was found that the

primary school teachers earned lower income than the average

income of general people at the beginning of their working life. But,

these teachers income will be gradually increasing until it is close tothe general people after the age of 40 years. The secondary school

teachers earned lower income than other professions before the age

of 40 years as well, but, after that, they earn higher income than other

professions on average (Figure 4).

When considering separately, we will have better

understanding in the different problems between two groups of


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5 Causes of different salary rate between government school teachers and private schoolteachers can be read at Somkiat Tangkitvanich, Suppanut Sasiwuttiwat, and Bank

Ngarmaroonchote (2012)

6 This deceit, with reference to general news, is valued between USD 10,000 and USD

17,000 per one employment rate. If this amount is close to the fact, the recruitment of

assistant teachers for 2,015 jobs from Year 2011-2012 will lead to the flow of crooked money

about USD 34,255,000 (for the assistant teachers professional examination only). If further

studying the work of Michael Tan (2007), we will find that the amount of crooked money forthe job transfer, workplace transfer or childrens enrollment in schools is tremendous in Thai

educational system in each year.

teachers, that is, the primary school teachers gained lower income

than the average income of other people while the secondary school

teachers had the problem of setting up too low starting salary.

Secondis the problem about the inequality withingroups of teacher. If we separate the teachers into two groups: teachers

in government schools, and those in private schools. The result is that

the teachers at the basic education level in government schools earn

approximately Baht 24,000 per month. Meanwhile, the teachers in

private schools earn the average income at Baht 12,000 per month.

To elaborate, the income of these two groups isdifferent for one time.5 Solving teachers low salary by only increasing

the salary for teachers in the government system could not reduce thisgap, but it hammers the problem. Since 2001 up to now, the income

of government school teachers and private school teachers have

been gradually different. Furthermore, this great difference of income

between government school teachers and private school teachers

tremendously stirs the teachers need to move from the private sector

to work in the governments educational sector, which leads to the

scandalous deceit in the teachers professional examination in 2013.6


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Third,before going to the next issue, lets discuss about theincrease of salary for teachers. Either high or low salary, this income

could improve the teachers quality of life. However, this may not always

or automatically relate to better quality of education. As discussed in

the second educational problem, boosting the educational investment,

especially to teachers, while the teachers bear responsibility for

documents, not the quality of learners, is not directly correlated with

the learners quality of education. Thinking about the teachers salary,

in practice, could not be separated from the appropriate responsibility

system.

Except the misunderstanding about teachers income (may

be judged as high or low without identifying any details) as partially

mentioned above, it is misunderstanding that only intellectual

teachers could be good teachers. We may hear a statement in the

Thai society that the present under-qualified education results from no

intellectual persons desiring to continue studies to become teachers.

This understanding is ahalf-truth. We found many evidences talking

about teachers differently.

At the concept level, Ken Robinson had an interesting

statement that a teacher is not only the doorman of contents, but he

also grows the varieties and creativity in children. Rita Pierson said in

TED Talk program on May 2013 that what the educators ignore to talk in

the good educational management is the relationship between teachers

and children. Good education is that the teacher is ready to contribute

sufficient time for children. The teacher with full of perseverance and


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abilities will challenge the learners prosperity and varieties. After

reading the viewpoints of Robinson and Pierson, we may protest in our

mind why we are wrong to seek for intellectual teachers. It is definite

that getting the intellectual teachers is not wrong, but it may not beenough and not the single answer.

According to the empirical data, PumsaranThongliemnak (2010) studied the correlation between qualifications

of teachers and academic achievements of children. The results are

so interesting. At the initial stage, this research reviewed the literature

explaining about the correlation between teachers quality and

childrens academic achievements. The result showed that the teachers

experience greatly put influence on childrens development. The new-

generation teachers teaching for the first year usually had the frontier

knowledge that could not be found in old teachers. In contrast, these

new teachers were unable to promote the childrens learning like the

teachers with 10-15 years of teaching experience.Besides, Darling-

Hammond(1999) found that the educational economists have tried

to study the correlation between teachers intellectual quotient and

childrens studying results since 1940s, but no explicit correlation was

found.


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However, the teachers skill affecting the childrensdevelopment wasthe verbal skill.This information indicates that the

general intelligence orknowledge of contents is not allthe childrenwant from their teachers, the experience and communications

between teachers and children are essential as well.

Most literature mentioned above involved American cases;

so Dr. Pumsaran sought for any empirical evidence in Thailand, and

found that the teachers teaching experience significantly affected

TIMSS test scores (1999). Regarding qualifications, it is more interesting

because the teachers attaining the education below the bachelor

degree (B.A.) or the master degree (M.A.) were more likely to help the

learners get higher scores than those taught by B.A. teachers. The

teachers attaining the bachelor degree in education could add higher

exam scores for students than the teachers completing any specific

studies (e.g. math, science); although the teachers completing the

specific studies had to achieve higher examination scores. However,

such information became less explicit in TIMSS examination (2007),

which may reflect the inconsistent correlation mentioned above. But, at

least, this mild sign indicates that the good educational management in

Thailand should not only rely on the teachers intelligence, but also their

teaching skills and experience.


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7 One proof is that, at the end of April 2013, the Vocational Education Commission sent a

notice (. 0604/1938) to every vocational school to urge the enrolment of more students.

Fourth

SUPPLEMENTARY

MEASURES

WITHOUT

SUFFICIENT

THE VOCATIONAL POLICY

STRESSESTHE QUANTITYOF

STUDENTS

Onevocational policy emphasized by the politicalsector and responded by the civil service system is the increase of ratioof vocational students/graduates to students in general education at

50:50. Although this measure has been carried out along with other

measures such as preparation of manpower plan, and improvement of

the quality of vocational students, in practice, the policy of increasing

the quantity of students seems to be the core policy.7


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8 Factors formulating the academic achievements may be divided into 3 parts: 1) learnerfactor, e.g. what type of social status they have, in what extent they have personal attributes

in learning, etc.; 2) systematic and environmental factor, e.g. school environment, ac-

countability system or governments policy; and 3) school factor, comprising teaching and

learning facilities together with the quantity and quality of teachers. Here, the third factor

will be mentioned.

The increasing quantity of students is not wrong, especially if

considering the expansion of production and service sectors requiring

more manpower from the vocational program in the future. But, the

opposite fact is the states investment in vocational schools.

For better understanding,I wouldlike to give more explanation about some concept on this matter. If we

view that the education means the production of quality children for

the society, at the most basic level (assume that there is no problem of

accountability system),the learners quality depends on8

the increaseof two production factors; namely,investment for skill practice

devices, and teachers in term of quality and quantity.The enrollment

of more vocational students without increase of production factors

(both investment and teachers) will enlarge the class, and add the

number of students per teacher. A plenty of research results support

that the quality of learners becomes less when the class is too big.

The measure of increasing the students to reach 50% if compared with

the general education extremely needs more number of teachers (what

should be done more is the quality of teachers and the investment in

devices).


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9 At the primary school level, the proportion is 16 students per teacher, and at the

secondary school level, the proportion is 22 students per teacher (World Bank, 2012 re-ferred in Trading Economics, accessed 13 July 2013).

Nevertheless, in the past and in practice, theimplementation was in the opposite direction because the budget

per vocational student was less than the budget to the general

education. The quantity of teachers has not yet been added to

balance with the increasing number of students. At present, there are

only 16,000 teachers filled in the position of government officers to take

care of 900,000 students (Daily News, 11 March 2013). The proportion is

57 students per teacher, which is greatly higher than the proportion of

the general education.9

To solve this problem,the vocational schools must engage

another 8,000teachers under the annual employment contract. This

helps reduce the proportion of teachers to students, but its not enough.

The estimated figure of the Vocational Education Commission indicates

that to increase the number of vocational students to be equal to those

in the general education without any effect to the class size, another

36,000 teachers must be added. At present, this matter has not yet

been approved by the Council of Ministers.


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According tothe theories and actual situations, itis not difficult to predict that urging the increasing quantity of students

with no concerns about the increase of production factors to enhance

good quality of learners will worsen the quality of vocational students

in the future. Furthermore, the policy with a focus on the targeted

proportion at 50:50 between the general education and the vocational

education stresses the school management to be responsible for a

wrong matter or accountable to quantity than quality.

For example, from January to February 2013, anagency of the Ministry of Education proposed the Office of the Basic

Education Commission, which governs the general education, to reduce

the enrolled students in order to push them to study in the vocational

schools more. This presents the wrong understanding because the

decreased enrollment on the general education does not result to

higher enrollment on the vocational education automatically. In addition,

we may argue that although more students enroll on the vocational

education, its because they have no choice or the students fail from

studying in the general education. This proposal considers the numberof students rather than the students actual needs (See Matichon, 11

January 2013; and Thairath, 27 February 2013; accessed 13 July 2013).


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I had a dream my life would be,So different from this hell Im living

So different now from what it seemed,Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.

All mentioned above are some observations on Thailandspresent educational situation. This is to examine between the dreams

of educators in the world and in Thailand and the actual picture. After

the assessment, we may say that our dream is not only so different from

what it seems. LikeAnne Hathawaysings in the end of I Dreamed a

Dream that the fact of educational life has killed the dream I dreamed

as well:


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HOW TOREBUILDTHE DREAM

FOR THAIEDUCATION

3


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Ifthe first chapter is a dream; the second chapter is the fact(as much as I know, and, certainly, its partial) of Thai education, which,

in fact, wipes out the dream in the first chapter indifferently. Anyway,

I believe that this chapter may rebuild the dream for Thai education

by inviting you all to argue the alternatives and solutions, and show

another facet of facts; the facts that many dreamers/ dream makers

have never felt discouraged and tried to solve them persistently.


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SCHOLARS AND

POLITICAL SECTOR

TO KINDERGARTEN

CHILDREN

DIVERT THE INTERESTOF

First

MORE

On April 2013, I wrote an article, entitled SiamIntelligent Unit, for Knowledge Network Institute. This article explains

the work ofKnudsen et al.(2006) who gathered certain research in

3 fields; namely, economics, biology: nervous system, and behavioral

science. These scholars as well as James J. Heckman, Nobel Prize

winner in economics, had a relevant conclusion that the pre-school

education or kindergarten level is so important to the learningdevelopment. They presented a variety of data; for example, the


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intervention and help for underprivileged learners since their childhood,

and monitoring the result by comparing with other children receiving no

help. The result showed that the children receiving such help had better

academic achievements and success than another group significantly.

Although the scholars in several areas have anidentical opinion about the importance of education in small children, itseems difficult that their proposal to the government for more attention

on small childrens education will be implemented by the government at

least due to 2 reasons (pursuant to the Public Choices Theory).

First,the investment in small children must wait for results so long. But,

the investment in older children results to the economy or the image ofpolitical success more rapidly. The governments term is 4 years only;

so it is usually motivated to select the policies not waiting for results too

long.

Second, the small children, especially at the kindergarten level, are not

eligible to exercise the political votes (at least by direct voting), but the

secondary school up to university students have such. As a result, the

political motivation to take care of old childrens education is higher.


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Nevertheless,on February 2013, the US

President, Obama, announced the educational policy during his second

term that he would focus on small children.11 This is an important pace

showing that the political sector desires to make investment for the

nations future rather than a short-term political outcome (otherwise the

American voters have a long vision; so they feel more satisfied with this

government policy than another careless policy). Obama announced

the one-and-all policy for children aged between 0-5 years (Early

Education for All Americans), comprising

1) motivating all low and moderate-income families to take their

children to study in high-quality preschools,

2) allocating the budget to support communities to expand the

service to serve children from birth through age 3 for good and

quality care, and

3) investment more than USD 1,500 million for voluntary home

visiting programs enabling the professionals to provide advice

on child development (The White House, 2013).

The responsefrom the political sector, especially

the country playing a key economic and political role like America,

sparks an idea that the focus on educational promotion for small

children has not yet been in despair. However, this matter is still unclear

11 He said that, In states that make it a priority to educate our youngest childrenstudies

show students grow up more likely to read and do math at grade level, graduate highschool, hold a job, form more stable families of their own. We know this works. So lets

do what works and make sure none of our children start the race of life already behind.

(Barack Obama, February 12, 2013).


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in Thailand. The persons interested in this are the administrators of

public health authorities. Frequently, only certain minor issues are

stressed, e.g. reading promotion, rather than the comprehensive view.

One concept I got and it seemed most practical came from

Dr. Kobsak Pootrakool around Year 2006-2007 when he was invited

to give a lecture on the topic of Human Capital Policy: Building a

Competitive Workforce for 21st Century Thailand in a dinner talk, and

I was one present there. In one part, he talked about thin investment insmall children if compared with old children. Dr. Kobsak also proposed

that the most possible action was the gradual increase of budget while

the budget for old children remained unchanged. In the long run, the

actual budget value would be more transferred to small children.

I hope that, for few years after that, I would discover better choices than

this, but I have not seen them yet.


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THE ACCOUNTIBILITY

SYSTEM

OF THAIEDUCATION

REFORM

Second

Accountability system reform means the reform of relation

for 5 factors: delegation, finance, performance, information, and

enforceability so that the educational management is the relation

between the state, school (teacher), and learner (guardian). The ultimate

objective of this system is the learners good academic achievements

(UNESCO, 2004). The World Bank proposes that this accountability

system reform should be based on three important measures:


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Measure One:Decentralization to the school-based management.This

measure emerges because if the educational management system is

centralized by the Ministry of Education, the government will be aware

of inferior quality of education slowly. Or, when the guardian or learner

wants to communicate with the government to improve the education,

the accountability route is long and bears high costs, which results tothe slow adaptation of education.

To have the same picture, imagine that we study in a school

outside the municipal area. What will we do for some quality problems

in school? We must go to file a petition to the Minister of Education in

Bangkok or just go to the local educational area office located in that

city. This excessive cost or obstacle blocks our travel, except in so

serious cases. As a result, the problems are accumulated and the

adaptation is limited.


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The reform by school-based management means the decentralized

delegation from the government to school, resulting to the short route

of accountability and higher enforceability, and to higher performance

of school and teacher.

Measure Two:

Informative accountability.A main belief of this measure is thatthe decentralized delegation makes the negotiation between school

and parents to shift the educational quality more possible. But, this may

not be sufficient so long as the parents do not know the actual school

quality or potential. Thus, the school should disclose any necessary

information for the parents decision on choosing the school or on

complaining about the school quality appropriately. This proposal needs

higher enforceability through higher information for higher performance

eventually. In practice, the school information disclosed to the parents is

in Report Card; you may get more information about it from the work

of Dr. Somkiat Tangkitvanich et al. (2012).

Measure Three:Teacher evaluation by linking the career path and

compensation a teacher will be receiving with the students academic

achievements (e.g. standard test).As a result, the teacher needs

not to waste time for many documents or other activities not focusing

on learners (changing in delegation and finance). Consequently, the

potential of teachers and learners would be fully encouraged and

focused (focusing performance). Furthermore, the linkage betweenteachers progress and academic achievements may be considered


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from the progress of standard test scores. Therefore, the students

weak in studies will be automatically more cared than the talented

students because the talented students usually get high scores, and

it is difficult to push their scores higher. Meanwhile, the weak students

can achieve more progress. This may motivate the teacher to pay more

attention to these weak students.

Thesethree measures must be undertaken all together,especially the decentralization and information disclosure or theformation of accountability system for academic achievements;

otherwise such decentralization will become the arbitrary and aimless

educational management. The research of Dilaga Lattapipat(2012)

indicated thatthe decentralization to the school-based management

with no accountability would push the academic achievements to

the lowest level, that is, the learners would have lower academic

achievements than the no-reform case. Currently, all these three

measures are simultaneously driven, and Thailand Development

Research Institution (TDRI) is the core academic actor.


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FOR LEARNERS

PROSPERITY& VARIETIES

EDUCATIONThird

Whenyou read about the proposal on the

formation of integrated accountability system (finance, decentralization,

and information), especially the request for linking the teachers

compensation with students academic achievements, you may, in one

side, feel that it should be better than the current situation where the

teachers must spend most time for documents, and it is highly likely that

such written evidence may be dressed while, in fact, those documents

cannot be linked with the teaching quality. In another side, you may feelif these new proposed measures are really good, whether they will ruin


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other values of teachers or result to the destruction of learning varieties

or not. The second feeling is so important. And I think that this feeling is

right because I and several persons monitoring the educational issues

have concerns about this as well.

Two well-recognized scholars who are famousphilosophers from Harvard University, Michael Sandel and Sir

Ken Robinson (2006, 2013), had concerns about these measures

substantially. Sandel (2012) indicated that the linkage between teachers

compensation and students academic achievements may change or

ruin some values in teachers from focusing on learners prosperouslearning to teaching for higher income. Robinson emphasized on one

issue that the education should be carried on to promote the creativity

and varieties of learners. But, if requiring that the teachers must

promote the knowledge filled in the standard test only as the learners

knowledge based on the standard test directly results to the teachers

income, this would destroy the childrens varieties and creativities.

Robinson also stressed the hierarchical knowledge structure placing

math and science on the top and put various kinds of art at the bottom.

While writing this article, my friend, ThitiratThipsamritkul, read a report on Art for Arts Sake? The Impact of Arts

Education prepared by OECD (2013), and she talked about one part

of this report that although art is positive for other skills and for the

emergence of innovations, it should be a main reason in supporting

the art because, finally, art gets along with human civilization like math

or science (or before). Art is also a space we use to consider beauty


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and meaning of life. I think that this report reflects the necessity and

actual circumstances of no-hierarchy knowledge. Myth or hierarchical

culture subject to the demand of market-capitalism praises certain

knowledge used to boost the economic growth only, and it has been

presented until we understand that it is the nature or fact since the 19th

Century; thus, this should be reviewed and corrected.

However,what should we do to retain the advantagesof accountability system newly created while we do not wipe out the

educational value or press the learners multiple intelligence? I propose

3 matters we should do together with the formation of integrated

accountability system.


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First,

there should a strong communication that the newly created

accountability system must aim at childrens learning, not test scores.

At the same time, we should emphasize that the accountability system

is not only incentivizing like carrot and big stick to hit and shape the

teachers to the way that the state considers that its appropriate. It

should be a diagnosis tool to support and encourage the teachers or

slightly-developed schools so that the government can mobilize more

resources to help them.

Second,

the government should set up the schools time frame for learning to

prevent the over-coaching for higher test scores.

Third,

the formation of alternative education system in the Thai society

should be opened or its hindrance or limitations should be reducedbecause, finally, although the government needs to emphasize on

certain important and measurable skills like math, science, English, or

other key characteristics, e.g. critical thinking or flexibility, the variety of

learning route the learners or parents want to choose for their children

should not be deterred.


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When talking about the alternative education, I had chance

to listen to opinions of two alternative educators of the Thai society;

namely, Pipob Thongchai, and Chatchawan Thongdeelert. Bothcollectively emphasized on certain issues, e.g. decentralization of

educational management, and increase of educational management

varieties to respond to the growth of learners who have specific

characteristics.

Chatchawan pointed out that the alternative schools have been

consistently grown up for 3 decades, and it may be said that they areready to move forward as long as the government has not yet blocked

them. For example, Chiang Mai is the central city of the northern region.

Its home-schooling increases from 4-5 households in the past 5 years to

be 50 households in 2013; this is a sharp growth.

Meanwhile,

Pipob Thongchai had several advanced proposals. Hereby, only two

interesting proposals are raised. The first oneis that the government

should take fewer roles in the educational management whereas the

private sector should play more roles. The second proposal is the

money transfer to school-age children in form of cash card (Pipob used

credit card. But, from his explanation, it should be the cash card) to

enable the children to buy the educational services they like.

If comparing with other international measures, Pipobs firstproposal is similar to the charter school or community school, whose


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management is changed from the state-managed school to the privateor community-managed school (particularly when the government had

no adequate potential to manage those schools as targeted). This may

be a solution for small schools now. That is, at present, the Ministry of

Education has a severe problem of educational management in remote

areas because the number of students is so thin that the proportion

of teacher to student is inappropriate for the efficient educational

management (for instance, if setting 1 teacher per 20 students, but a

school contains few students and only 4 teachers are assigned. These 4

teachers must teach for every level and every subject; so the education

is inefficient).

Inthis case, in 2013, the Ministry of Education tried to proposethe school merger, but it was protested by several parties. However, if

the state-managed schools are not merged, more teachers cannot beallocated due to limited budget. But, if nothing is done, the Thai society


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will become the aging society in the future, and these schools will

gradually hold fewer learners and teachers until the education cannot

be managed in the end.

One solutionrelying on the charter school measure and the formation

of accountability system is that these small schools should have

time to prove themselves whether they are capable of managing the

education based on their own direction under existing resources, and

of improving the learners academic achievements or not. If not, these

schools should willingly walk into the alternative change that they will

either merge with another neighboring school or become the charter orcommunity school. In this regard, the governments subsidy will be less,

step by step, so that the private sector or community manages and sets

up its own educational goals.

Theproposal on the educational decentralization from thestate to the private sector or community in type of alternative education

may not be the same to the decentralization from the central state/

bureaucratic system to the school-based management. We are talking

about the role transfer from the state to the private sector or community.

This theme must deal with the second issue proposed by Pipob, that is,

budget allocation from learners via cash card.

This measure is internationally called as the conditional cash transfer.

Mostly, the condition is that this cash card must be used for education


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only, and given to poor families. But, any other conditions may be set,

e.g. age or gender. In addition, the proposal for the direct cash transfer

to the learners to purchase educational services may be identical to the

proposal for the voucher-based educational management, which means

that the voucher is given to each school-age child to purchase any

educational services. When the school receives the voucher, it can be

cashed from the government.

Generally,both the conditional cash transferand voucher-based educational management are the measures oftransferring the educational budget to the demand side or purchasers

(demand side financing). It is expected that when the purchase power

belongs to the purchasers; their negotiation power will be stronger, the

completion for good educational management by school will be better,

and the learners have more financial liberty to select their learning. In

Pipobs view, the demand side financing should not only be used by the

state-managed education, but also the alternative education and other

educational services outside school.

I think that the proposals of both persons areinterestingnot in term of possibility or correctness or fault. It is

interesting because, as both said; they did not focus on alternative

school. We must not misunderstand that the alternative education

is the alternative school. Both of them talked about the system and

structure. Actual educational management is not either school or

teaching and learning approach, but the educational management

philosophy rebelling against the fixed standard pattern in the main

stream, and seeking for other routes to respond to the learners nature

seamlessly and endlessly.


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Either you or I will agree with the proposals of Pipob or Chatchawan or

not, what described above is another side of power allows us to realize

that the educational paradigm not relying on the main stream still

exists, is steadily alert and ready to submit the proposals challenging

the main educational management.If we attentively listen to and

analyze these proposals, the alternative education, for some proposals,

may be the solutions for the main-stream education.


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THE TEACHERS

FINANCIALDIFFICULTIES

REFORM

Fourth

Itis definite that, from two proposals for educational reform,we recognize the teacher roles in the educational management. As

long as the teachers quality of life is not good enough, the request for

their time contribution for teaching may be difficult in practice as stated

in Item 3 above. This section will mention 2 important issues. The first

oneis the solution of salary gap in groups of teacher (e.g. teacher in

the private school and government school, primary school teacher,

and secondary school teacher). The second issue is the measures to

improve the teachers initial salaries they receive before the age of

40, which is quite low if compared with other professionals in the Thai

society. The last issue is the mitigation of corruption in the Ministry of

Education.


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FirstSalary gap in groups of teacher.

For the proposal for solving the double salary gap between

teachers in government schools and private schools, the work

conducted by Somkiat Tangkitvanich et al.(2012) pointed out that

the original cause was the law prescribing that the government and

private educational institutes shall be subsidized inequitably; the private

ones shall be less subsidized. Meanwhile, the government requires

that the private schools must not collect the school fee higher than the

amount permitted. In this regard, the private schools get the low income

whereas they are prohibited to earn more, especially through the

school fee collection.

One solution proposed by Dr. Somkiat was to change the

subsidy structure so that the government and private schools get

the equal financial support (especially what linked with the number

of learners as it indirectly subsidized the learners) or, otherwise, the

limitation on the school fee collection should be removed, and to pass

the decision to the parents on the amount of school fee that is relevant

to the school quality or appropriateness. Such decision would be betterif the informative accountability was set up.


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The second issue

is the gap between teachers salariesand other professionals averagesalaries in the Thai society.

The possible initial proposal is toincrease the teachers

salaries, but the increasing rate will be lower up to the service

length.Technically, this is to reduce the slope of lifetime income line

for teachers. This measure shifts the teachers initial salaries whereas

the government investment to engage the teachers for all their civil life

remains the same. One additional advantage is that the high beginning

salary for teachers attracts more people to teaching, especially whenconsidering a fact that before earning higher income than other

professionals, the secondary school teachers must work until they are

at 40, which is a long period and disincentive. One special proposal for

primary school teachers is that they should gain more stable income (to

be studied more for the appropriate amount) because, according to the

empirical data, these teachers gained lower lifetime income than the

average income of other professions.

However,this salary increase should aim at balancingthe baseline income to be equal to the average income of other

professions only. This does not include other income added due to

teaching abilities and boosting the learners academic achievements.


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In addition,

For the third issue,

the eradication of corruption significantly helpsreduce the teachers expenses. According to Michael Tan(2006),

many activities in the Ministry of Education led to the corruption. If

the corruption includes the school transfer for teachers recruited, it

is estimated that the corruption value may reach Baht 500-1,000 perkilometer (distance from the old school to the new school a teacher

wants to go to). The loan sharks with interest rate at 20-30% per annum

for this transfer deem the heavy burden for teachers. If this problem

is tackled, the low compensation for teachers will not be an excuse or

hindrance in the educational management as earlier.


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THE QUALITYOF VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS

THE NUMBEROF LEARNERS

MEASURES OFSHIFTING

ALONG WITH RISING

Fifth

Infact, the encouragement for investment in vocationallevel was the hot argument during 1970s, and this ended by the

World Banks conclusion that the investment in vocational level was

neither worthwhile nor fruitful for the economic development like

the investment in the childhood education so long as the vocational

education system cannot attain 2 key conditions:


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First, produce the students, either quantity or attributes, relevantlyto the demand of labor market.

Second,the private sector does not have the proper costsharing because, if considering the compensation from the vocational

education management in some developing countries, e.g. Malaysia orThailand, the World Bank reported that the private return from

educational investment was around 20% of investment sum whereas

the social return was at 12-25%. It is unfair that the government borne

the cost solely. Therefore, its not surprising that the developing

countries including Thailand did not pass these two conditions. Hence,

the World Bank has gradually reduced the budget for vocational

education over 30% from Year 1977-1988, and turned interest to thechildhood education (World Bank, 1991).

As Thailand now turns back to promote the vocationaleducation. A big question is how much we concern about these global

arguments. Definitely, as mentioned in the last chapter, we may have

the same opinion that the increase of vocational students is the

imperfect target. The measure of linking the qualifications of vocational

graduates and the market demand is still unclear. Then, the government

bears the main operating costs. But, what can we do more than

mumbling these matters? I think we have and the proposals are not

newly issued, but already initiated by the Ministry of Education but no

support for serious working; its Work Integrated Learning (WIL).

The main concept of WIL is theintegration of studying and working

together. Such integration offers several benefits:


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First benefit If we consider the education and production separately or it is called

Two Sector Growth Model, we will find that if there are more students in

schools, the labors are in educational institutes. So, in the short period,

the number of labors decreases or the labor cost is higher due to thelabor shortage, resulting to a thin profit or slight economic growth in the

short term. However, in the long term, when people are

well-educated, they can create high productivity after completing the

education, resulting to higher economic growth in the long run. In

contrast, if many people leave school for work, the economy grows

in the short term. But, in the long term, because there are few skilled

labors and few graduates working for high productivity, the long-term

economic growth will become low. In conclusion, the absolute

separation between the educational sector and the production sector


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trades off between short-term economic growth and long-term one.

WIL teaching and learning approach links both educational sector

and production sector together. When a learner studies in an

educational institute, he simultaneously has the working experience.

Thus, the labors are not fully drawn from the production sector; there is

no trading off between the short-term and long-term economic growth

as stated above.

Second benefit WIL changes the teaching and learning approach to be relevant to

the attributes required by the production sector because the school,

learner, and enterprise recruiting the learner to work while studying

will coordinate the information, and will revise their requirements at all

time. This close coordination can mitigate the job-seeking difficulty after

completing the education; meanwhile, the employers hold the complete

information to consider the quality of job applicants they want. After

that, the turnover rate will drop.

For the last benefit,

as the government has a limited budget for educational investment,

driving the learners to be involved in the actual working in the

production sector will promptly add the capital for teaching and

learning, but the government does not make additional investment. In

the meantime, it seems that the private sector also shares the cost of

vocational education management.


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Theabove five proposals are not complete. Frankly, I,myself, have no abilities to present the hope and dream to solve the

educational problems universally. When we talk about education

and learning, it is too arrogant to say that we understand them

comprehensively under one persons wisdom. All mentioned here is anexpression of opinions under experimental manner and by opening

mind that everything may not be correct. But, at least, I think that this

article, especially in the last chapter, presents the most important issue,

that is, hope for education and persistence to continue our dream that

we will have the good education eventually

Beforeending this article, I would like to tell you aconversation between Masanobu Fukuoka, author of The One Straw

Revolution and Senator Rosana Tositrakul. Senator Rosana told me

long time ago that, at one time, she took Fukuoka to get on the train.

On the train, Fukuoka said to Senator Rosana that,

Rosana, not be afraid that we will not reach the destination so long as

we get on the right trainsooner or later---we will arrive there.

I hope that this article helps us see the route of right train so that, on

someday, we arrive at the destination that the quality of Thai education

is universal. Thank for your reading and joining our journey.


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Ammar Siamwalla, Dilaka Lathapipat, Somkiat Tangkitvanich..Revamping Thai Education System: Quality for All. Bangkok:

Thailand Development Research Institute, 2011.

Ashvin Ahuja, Thitima Chucherd, Kobsak Pootrakool. HumanCapital Policy: Building a Competitive Workforce for 21stCentury Thailand. Bangkok: Bank of Thailand, 2006.

Bank Ngamarunchot. : - ? 4 April 2013.http://www.siamintelligence.com/inequality-on-education-policy/ (13 July 2013 ).

Bank Ngamarunchot, Tiraphap Fakthong. Educational Inequality(Thai language only). Bangkok: Siam, 2012.

Centre for Educational Research and Innovation. Art for Arts Sake?The Impact of Arts Education. OECD, 2013.

Chatchawan Thongdeelert, Bank Ngamarunchot.Alternative Education in Thailand (June 2013).

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Daily News. .

11 March 2013. http://www.dailynews.co.th/education/189884 (13 July 2013 ).Dilaka Lathapipat.

. Revamping Thai Education System:Quality for All. Bangkok: Thailand DEvelopment Research

Institute, 2011.

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Ken Robinson. Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity.TED. February 2006. http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

(9 July 2013 ).

. Ken Robinson: How to escape educations death valley. April2013.http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_how_to_escape_education_s_death_valley.html (9 July 2013 ).


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Matichon. . . 11 January 2013. http://www.kroobannok.com/55655(13 July 2013 ).

Michael Sandel. What Money Cant Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets.Farrar, Straus and Giroux , 2012.

Michael Tan. The Politics of the Decentralization of Basic Educationin Thailand. Ph.D. Thesis, Leeds: University of Leeds: Schoolof Politics and International Studies (POLIS), 2007.

Pipob Thongchai, Wimontip Musikaphan. Thai Education(July 2013).

Pumsaran Tongliemnak. Three Essays on Teacher Labor Markets inThailand. Ph.D. Thesis, Stanford University, 2010.

Ritva Reinikka, Nathanael Smith. Public Expenditure Traking

Surveys in Education. UNESCO, 2004.

Somkiat Tangkitvanich, Supanutt Sasiwuttiwat, BankNgamarunchot. Financial and Management System forCreating Educational Accountability (Thai language only).Year end seminar Revamping Thai Education System:Quality for All. Bangkok: Thailand Development andResearch Foundation (TDRI), 2012.


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Steven Reinberg. IQ isnt xed at birth, can increase with education.

27 December 2011. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/medical/health/medical/mentalhealthstory/2011-12-27/IQ-isnt-xed-at-birth-and-can-increase-with-education/52237552/1 (10 July 2013 ).

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Problems and Solution (June 2013).

Thairath. . 27 February 2013.http://www.thairath.co.th/content/edu/329131 (13 July 2013).

The White House. Fact Sheet President Obamas Plan for EarlyEducation for all Americans. 13 February 2013. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-ofce/2013/02/13/fact-sheet-president-obama-s-plan-early-education-all-americans(13 July 2013 ).

Trading Economics. Pupil-teacher ratio; primary in Thailand. 2008.http://www.tradingeconomics.com/thailand/pupil-teacher-ratio-primary-wb-data.html (13 July 2013 ).

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Bank, 1991.


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The 2013 Quality of Childrens Life :

Revive Educational Dreams for Thai Children

August 2013

1,000

Bank Ngarmarunchot

King Mongkuts University of Technology, Thonburi, Economist

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The National Institute for Child and Family Development

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Healthy Child, Youth, and Family Promotion Section

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