Onesqa worried that thousands of schools will not meet the minimum qualifications
Many schools, such as this alternative ‘rongrien withi pud’, or Buddhist approach schools, must be evaluated by Onesqa to see if they meet the proper guidelines.
What is wrong with the public schools in Thailand? Why are some schools having trouble passing certification? Is it a lack of funding or is it because of the lack of teacher qualifications? After you have read the article below, what recommendations would you make to improve the standards of schools in Thailand?
At least 20 percent of the schools in Thailand do not meet current standards of basic education. This may sound bad, but the bright side is that people are willing to accept that there is a problem and talk about it.
Before a problem can be solved, one has to accept that the problem exists.
There is a natural tendency to provide good evaluations for people you know so that they don't look bad and lose face. In some organisations, you are even expected to make only positive evaluations. Making negative critical evaluations can even be dangerous for your career or future.
Using an independent evaluator or assessor without any relation to the person being evaluated can often get around this problem and determine the truth. This is the approach that has been chosen in Thailand.
How did Thailand's education sector get to the point where it is self-critical and able to issue a negative judgement against itself? The answer is the 1997 People's Constitution.
The 1997 constitution calls for a national education law (Section 81). A National Education Act (NEA) became law in 1999. Part of this new law addressed education quality. The "Education Standards and Quality Assurance" chapter of the law (Chapter 6) established an "Office for National Education Standards and Quality Assessment" (Onesqa) (Source: Onesqa web site, also see Thailand's Education Law).
The 1999 education law called for a nationwide evaluation or assessment of all 35,600 primary and secondary schools. The first phase of assessments ran from 2000 to 2005. The current phase of assessments started in 2006 and will finish in 2010. Results on the current phase of assessment were released earlier this month:
One-fifth [around 4,000 schools] of the 22,811 schools did not pass the assessment. There are about 12,800 schools yet to be evaluated by the agency, and the bad news will become worse, as most of the remaining schools are small ones located in remote areas. The chances of these passing the standard are remote, as they are already struggling to find teachers and sufficient budgets to run the schools.
Privatise or localise education?
The only way to solve the problem is to "overhaul the entire mission" according to Onesqa director Somwung Pitiyanuwat.
Currently, the Ministry of Education runs 80 percent of the primary and secondary schools in Thailand. Mr Somwung proposes that this be cut in half by handing over 50 percent of the schools to government and private enterprise.
Local administrative organisations and the private sector should be allowed to take over this duty from the ministry so that it can concentrate on supervising them and giving them direction and financial support. Many local administrative organisations want to take over schools from the ministry, but in many cases it [the ministry] is reluctant to give up its control over the schools.
As far as privatisation of schools is concerned, Thailand already has a good working model in the country's abundant international schools. International schools are a vibrant part of Thailand's education sector that sets it apart from other countries. Russians send their children to be educated in English and live in the more hospitable climate of Pattaya for part of the year. Other Asian countries such as South Korea have traditionally barred their education sectors to foreign participation, not so Thailand.
Bangkok Post | Learning Post | Thai schools fail the grade