Educators want more than populist policies

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EDUCATION
Educators want more than populist policies
By WANNAPA KHAOPA
The Nation 2011-06-13

Greater focus on quality urged; but 15 years of free schooling popular

Education policies being promoted by politicians are not in line with educational development direction. Rather than focusing on real development of the country's education, some political parties had launched populist policies to get votes, educators said.

They urged the next government to continue the 15 years of free schooling, to extend the provision of free education and adjust some of its regulations as a priority. They also called for an expansion of information technology to schools in remote areas and training of students on how to make use of IT.

"Some parties promise to increase salaries or give IT tools to every |student. I'm afraid such policies will be only for votes, but cannot be done in practice or they will affect other systems if they are implemented," the assistant dean of Kasetsart University (KU)'s Agricultural Faculty Tanin Kongsila said.

Some teachers totally agree with the 15-year free schooling policy of the Abhisit Vejjajiva government, while others want more transparent regulations for the policy, saying the current rules have caused problems.

Samien Thuraphan, a teacher from Bang Nong Tubtao School in Khon Kaen, said the free education policy helped ease parents' expenses, especially those who live in remote areas. And, another male teacher who asked not to be named from the same province, said more children in rural areas could pursue basic education.

Tanin said he wanted the new government to offer free education until higher education for students who really want to study and have the capability to do so. This should be a policy priority, and cover students in the whole country, he said.

WiFi, 3G and computers should also be provided for schools in remote areas and students and teachers trained to make use of them to reduce educational gap between urban and rural students.

Kannapa Pongponrat and Walanchalee Wattanacharoensil, lecturers in the Tourism and Hospitality Management Division at Mahidol's International College, said no government had collected the big picture about the portion of graduates required for each field, especially fields like industry to try to balance the national workforce.

They urged the next government to collect information about the workforce to shape education so it meets the demands.

Vocational training should be promoted with clear guidelines for career paths plus a secure minimum income given to divert students who might otherwise be interested in undertaking university courses.

Kannapa also called for concrete action to prepare Thai students for the Asean Economic Community in terms of teaching languages and instilling a unique Thai culture to enhance their capability.

Meanwhile, Maitree Inprasitha, dean of Education at Khon Kaen University, said he hadn't seen any government make changes to develop quality education.

"What I've seen is just wasting a huge budget of millions of baht to provide mass training to teachers across the country. This short training has not had any impact on teacher and education development. Rather than wasting the budget without any [major] impact, the next government should focus on long-term teacher development.

"Long-term development should be done with current teachers and teachers-to-be together," he said.

Maitree urged universities that are training teachers to create effective teaching innovations and to pass these on to their students. Then, the universities should work with school directors when students do an internship to pass on their innovations to other teachers already working at schools.

"Our students have proved they can make changes in 22 schools in remote areas of the North and Northeast with collaboration from teachers and directors at those schools. They've used the faculty's teaching innovation that enables primary students to be able to think and solve problems themselves," he said, adding that the Ordinary National Educational Test mathematics score of one school had jumped from 11 per cent to 87 per cent in five years.

He also wants the new government to make regulations more flexible so a few new graduate teachers from the same university can be appointed at the same school, as they would act as a team pushing their acquired teaching innovations to be implemented at schools.

Boonchuay wanted the policy of the Thaksin Shinawatra government that funds rural children to study abroad to be retrieved, as it offers better educational opportunities to underprivileged children.