The total perdition of the education system in Thailand

The modern education system in Thailand was introduced more than 50 years ago. It is long enough to claim that the education system in Thailand has been totally failure. The recent crisis in particular shows that we are completely unable to deal with the problem created by both the bureaucrats and the citizens. In fact, this crisis has its root in the rotten education system. What has happened?


First of all, the problem lies with the distribution of education, as only the rich, strictly speaking the people in Bangkok and the big cities, can get a good education, go to a better school. But the people in the other provinces lack good schools, and effective educational tools. Moreover, the people who live in the country, where there is no electricity and water supply, even lack schools. They have to walk for 10 kilometer across mountains to go to bad schools where they can only learn how to read and write Thai.


Second, even though the rich in the big cities can go to school and have better facilities, the quality of the education is still bad. A recent survey about the IQs of teenagers showed that the average IQ is only 87, worse than the average of the normal IQ, which is 90. Furthermore, these teenagers prefer to go shopping and seeing movies or playing games to studying. You can see Thai teenagers staying at the shopping centers all day and, of course, at night in discotheques.


In addition, the teaching methods are old-fashioned because the teachers teach students to memorize knowledge only for the examination. Accordingly, students lack self esteem and self-motivation and cannot think and work independently by themselves. Thus, they are very emotional and study because they are frightened on base of fear, not because they want knowledge. As a result, clever politicians who can manipulate public opinion will rule them. Besides, Thailand cannot invent anything high-tech. They have to import it from developed countries. This leads to economic dependence; i.e., and a situation similar to colonization.


However, there is hope from the fringe of the society. It is the alternative education, which is based on the wisdom root of the society, Buddhism. Thais can learn from temples or from some alternative school; for instance, in Chiang Rai with the Jitwiwat group (the new consciousness group, see more at jitwiwat.org). If this alternative education blooms in Thailand, Thailand will change for the better because it teaches children to grow up independently with social responsibilities. It would be a promising future of Thai education.