Thailand's Education System is Put Bottom of the Class Because of a Lack of Vision, and Corruption by Phairath Khampha 30 October 2000 The Thai education system will lag far behind many of its Asian counterparts in 10 years because its reform efforts have been implemented with little foresight or direction, a Singapore-based business research firm said on October 10, 2000. Thailand's education system has been unprepared for the modern era and rote learning is the norm, says Strategic Intelligence. There is little incentive for innovative thought or proper understanding of basic principles. "Although repetition and rote-learning helped Thailand achieve high levels of basic literacy [illiteracy in Thailand is 5%, compared with 15% overall in the Asia-Pacific region], the country has produced few innovators capable of competing in a knowledge-based economy," it said. "Thai people are basically incapable of developing appropriate solutions to problems in life because they have not been taught to think." Tight government control of education had resulted in a bureaucracy that made it difficult to effect change or even to get rid of incompetent teachers, particularly as more than half had paid large quanitities of money to get to their position and the system of corruption ensured that this system stayed in place. As other Southeast Asian states began to abandon rote learning, Thailand's universities slid in Asiaweek magazine's higher-education rankings. In the most recent rankings, Thammasat, the highest-placed Thai university, was 51st, it said. Thailand in 1999 passed the Education Reform Act, under which the Education and University Affairs ministries must be consolidated by 2002, and the 2,400 educational districts are to be condensed into 290 units. This consolidation was meant to cut management costs by 40%. The act also decreed that teachers must create curricula that emphasise problem-solving and incorporate information technology into their classrooms instead of rote learning which teachers would rather use because it means that they only once or twice in their lives have to prepare classes. They can then spend the rest of their lives teaching and reteaching the same thing. The new system would mean teachers in Thailand would actually have to apply some effort to their work, something they vehemently abhorr. Reformers also have proposed teachers be required to obtain higher degrees and receive a 100% salary hike, so the best minds are not lured away to other professions. The firm said these changes may be too little, too late. Consolidating the system would probably concentrate graft in a ministry riddled with corruption, says one consultant. After the police, the Ministry of Education is the most corrupt, with provincial and district education administrators completely ripping off families of students without providing much of value in return. The average C-4 level to C-7 level administrator at the provincial education offices annually steals about $70,000 from the system, the study revealed. This is on top of their own salary and much more than the average earnings of most people in developed countries. Despite the promise that reform will reduce costs, half the education budget still goes towards administrative expenses, many of them unnecessary but artifically created, leaving only a small portion for investments that improve quality, it quoted a World Bank report as saying. Many teachers resist the shift from rote learning, the firm said, because they inherently are lazy and do not want to make the extra effort to provide true quality education. Strategic Intelligence noted that even in areas where some reforms have taken hold, they have been misguided. The Education Ministry has instructed teachers to discuss information technology and has purchased costly computers for roughly 10,000 schools-another opportunity for graft-but did not given teachers training in information technology. The country has few teachers who meet international standards in computer skills or English proficiency. In the long run, warns education researcher Somkiat Tangkitvanich, Thailand's half-hearted reform means its schools would fall behind those not only of Singapore and Malaysia, but also of China, India and Vietnam, countries that have targeted their education towards specific sectors or are more advanced in IT. China and Vietnam, especially, have a superior education system that produces graduates with knowledge and understanding equivalent to some of the best education systems in the world. Vietnam's engineers are as good as or, in the case of some fields, better than United States-trained engineers, particularly with respect to water resources management, the report said. Consequently, Thailand's economy would be caught in a bind. As the ASEAN Free Trade Area is implemented, Thailand will compete in an open regional economy in which poorer countries can more cost-effectively make labour-intensive goods. But Thailand's workforce will not be prepared to offer higher-value-added products. One educational consultant estimated that Thai universities in 2000 would produce fewer than 5,000 graduates who are proficient both in English and in IT. In the previous five years Thai students were consistently outperformed at the UN Academic Olympics by their regional peers, particularly by Vietnamese students who regularly win gold and silver medals. The Thai government created a skills development fund to provide workers with low-interest loans to learn new skills, but it has had little success. It seemed most Thais would rather have fun and learn new skills--a useless endeavour in the ir personal development. The fund is paid for with fines from firms that do not provide their workers with enough opportunities to upgrade skills, but the fines are so low most companies pay the penalties rather than allow the government to regulate their training programs. Furthermore, most firms are owned by the economic and political elite who would rather Thais remained out of the knowledge circle because there is a fear among the elite that their status quo would be threatened with too many smart peasants. However, Thailand is being squeezed out of high- and low-end industries. Cambodia, Bangladesh and other poorer states are undercutting Thailand's cheap labour and yet can provide much better educated people to accomplish increasingly more complex work.