Educational Reform in Thailand:
the view from an insider

Dr Rung Kaewdang, Secretary-General, The Office of Education Council

Educational reform in Thailand gets mixed reviews. There is generally praise for its aims and direction, but a fair share of criticism for its implementation.

The problem is that educational reform anywhere, not just in Thailand, is an enormously complex process and evaluations are difficult to make – particularly in the early stages, as is the case here. Few people, in fact, have the necessary perspective to make a solid overall assessment.

One who does is Dr Rung Kaewdang, Secretary-General of the Office of Education Council (OEC). Dr Rung was a driving force behind the National Education Act of 1999 and he has been one of the chief architects of the educational reform effort in Thailand for many years. The learning post was fortunate to be able to spend an hour with him recently to get his views on how things are progressing.

Initially, says Dr Rung, educational reformers in Thailand were perceived by their international colleagues as being too ambitious, initiating too many major projects. Consequently, they settled on eight essential priorities.

Number one, he says, was expanding educational opportunities. “The first thing that we did was to acknowledge that education is a right of all Thais.

“This stemmed from the fact that on average the level of education for Thais is very low. When we began, in fact, it averaged only 4.6 years per person. At the same time, the corresponding figure was 7.8 years for China, 12 years for the United States, about 11 years for Japan and about 13 years for Korea.”

This, he says, was the impetus behind the government’s decision to increase the number of years of compulsory school from six to nine. That completed, Dr Rung says the government is set to approve an “enormous increase” in the education budget to extend compulsory school through year twelve. And moves are afoot to add preschool as well.

There is a second dimension to the expansion of educational opportunity, Dr Rung says. People with special needs are also included.

“In Thailand, there were very few programmes for the handicapped, but when the education act was passed the handicapped gained the right to an education. Now there is a wide variety of programmes available,” he says.

“It is now almost a matter of policy that handicapped students will study in regular classes rather than being separated into special schools as in the past.”

Special needs also includes gifted children, Dr Rung says. “We began a programme five years ago. What we have done first is begin to develop tools to identify students who have special abilities. Here, OEC, together with Srinakharinwirot University and Patai Udom Suksa School are carrying out research. There are plans to expand this programme significantly, possibly beginning the next academic year.

Complicating the process somewhat, however, are parental perceptions. “All parents believe their children are gifted, so it is necessary to tread carefully,” Dr Rung observes. “We need experts to give advice here and experts are expensive. But the government has indicated it is ready to invest the money.”

The eventual goal, he says, is to develop IEPs, (individual education programmes) for both gifted students and handicapped students.

“Suppose, for example, I am a genius at mathematics. According to my chronological age, I may be studying in grade three, but in mathematics, I should be studying at the level of grade 12. At present, this is not possible. But in the new system, it will be possible to separate such a student out (while staying in the same school). It won’t be necessary to sit and learn at a very elementary level,” he says.

“Handicapped children, on the other hand, will be allowed to progress at their own speed. It is not necessary for them to complete a level in one year. They could take two years. Consequently, in the future all students will be able to learn according to their skills and abilities,” Dr Rung says optimistically.

Children have their own unique strengths and weaknesses and these individual differences must be accommodated within the education system.

The second priority, says Dr Rung, is to establish a new system of education that stresses lifelong learning. This includes classroom learning in schools, non-formal education for adults and a system of informal learning that can take place at any time or place.

With the emphasis on lifelong learning, Dr Rung says, a new term has come into currency: ‘learning resource’ (laeng rian ruu).

“We are making all of Thailand and its society a learning resource,” Dr Rung declares.

To do so, has required a change of mindset and a way of doing things. “Previously, for example, if you had entered the national library, you would have seen very little learning taking place there. All you saw were tourists. You did not see children because they thought of it as a very boring place.

“Now, we have converted the national library into a learning resource centre with many learning activities for children. We have changed the role of the library curator into that of a teacher.”

Dr Rung cites the wax museum as another example. “The wax museum is excellent, better than Madame Tousseau’s in England,” he asserts. “In Madame Tousseau’s it is just people. Here, it is whole stories – the abolition of slavery during the reign of King Chulalongkorn, for instance. That is a big exhibition that Thai children can visit to learn about this important historical event.”

Factories are yet another example, he says. “Previously, they always said education wasn’t their responsibility. But now many factories are learning resource centres for children, especially in regards to the prevention of water pollution. Children see how they treat water before it is released.”

Similarly, says Dr Rung, national parks and mangrove forests are all actively promoted as learning resources. “People can learn anywhere, not just in a cramped rectangular classroom with chalk and a blackboard.”

Thai schools now have the flexibility to develop content relevant to their local communities.

The third area of concern, according to Dr Rung, involves the reform of the curriculum and teaching methodology.

“The weak point of the Thai educational system has been in our over-reliance on memorisation and knowledge which is not appropriate to the talents and abilities of the students,” Dr Rung observes.

In particular he cites the problem of curriculum rigidity and the failure to make the curriculum appropriate to local conditions. Here, he says, there is ongoing debate over whether Thailand needs a centralised system or whether the curriculum needs to be adapted primarily to the conditions of local communities.

This debate is only natural, he says. “That’s fine. Education is not something that is black or white. And things will slowly improve.”

Indeed, there have been significant changes as Thailand’s reform curriculum has moved from the pilot stage to nationwide implementation this year. In principle, says Dr Rung, there are three elements to this national curriculum.

“The first involves what we want all Thais to study in the same way – that which deals with the nation, for example. There is one version of Thai history. You can’t have five or six versions.

“Religion is another case – there must be an accurate understanding of Buddhism and of other religions. You can’t say that one religion is better than another or that one religion is a mortal enemy of another. This is a matter of national stability.

“The institution of the monarchy is another important case, as is Thai culture. Here, we want all Thais to have the same understanding. It doesn’t matter if you live in Narathiwat or if you live in Mae Hong Son, national unity is paramount.”

The second aspect of the curriculum involves core subjects like mathematics, science and foreign languages. Here, says, Dr Rung, the basic content is prescribed by the Ministry of Education, but schools have more flexibility than in the past.

“Schools may vary in how deeply they go into the content. The English curriculum in Phuket, for example, might be different from the curriculum in Chaiyaphum because Phuket has more opportunities to use the language. Similarly, a school might produce a local version of the math curriculum, but ultimately it must be based on the content of the national curriculum. If they want to use examples from the local community, that’s fine, Dr Rung explains.

The third part of the national curriculum is reserved for the schools to design by themselves based on their local communities.

“This ‘school curriculum’ refers to content which is different from other schools,” Dr Rung explains. “For example, the history of the community, the study of the local geography or the local culture,”

One of the stumbling blocks to change has been the examination system and here, Dr Rung says, real progress has been made.

“One area where we have been almost 90 percent successful is the elimination of entrance exams at the lower levels. There is now no entrance examination for year one of primary school. In the past there was also an entrance exam for the first year of secondary school. That is gone. And there will no longer be entrance exams for upper secondary as well.

“In the future we will eliminate the entrance exams for higher education too. We are already gradually increasing the importance of the high school results,” Dr Rung explains.

"Another area where there has been rapid and clear progress is in organisational reform,” Dr Rung relates. “There is now only one Ministry of Education and, here too, the centre is reducing its role in favour of the districts and most of all, the schools. There is constant discussion of how schools can increase their power."

Dr Rung says there is considerable local interest in the concept of school-based-management (SBM) in which schools have a much greater say in their affairs than was the case previously.

Under the previous concept of the school, says Dr Rung, the principal was the key. Now this has changed to the school committee and, indeed, the whole school community. There are many exchanges of ideas on this, including exchanges with other countries, he says.

“In terms of SBM, we were late starters but we have moved quickly because we are consistent. Other countries, apart from perhaps two or three, don’t have a body overseeing educational reform.

“Indeed, if you take an overview of educational reform, Thailand has moved much farther than many countries. That is because we have people specifically assigned to the task. Our own Office of the Education Council is constantly pushing forward. In the United States, on the other hand, it is a start and stop process depending on the state. The central government has relatively little power in this regard,” Dr Rung says.

There has also been good progress in the important area of quality assurance and standards, Dr Rung points out.

The selection process should soon be less onerous for these university-bound students.

“We now have the Office of Education Standards and Evaluation (OESE) whereas in the past we had nothing. We had no system of school assessment. Now there must be an assessment every five years for all elementary schools, secondary schools and universities. They must study their direction, and their achievements in comparison to national standards. There is a growing focus on key indicators instead of leaving principals free, so we now have the beginnings of a systematic approach (to school evaluation),” Dr Rung says.

Also in the positive column, according to Dr Rung, is educational finance. “We converting many types of funds which come into schools. We are moving away from budgeting by item in favour of block grants which gives school more autonomy in administering their funds.”

As in many countries, one of the areas proving most difficult to change is that of the teaching profession, Dr Rung relates.

“There has not yet been agreement on teachers’ salaries. There has not been agreement on teacher development,” he says by way of example.

“This is a weakness in Thai education. One reason is that in the past, other aspects of education have moved more quickly than the teaching profession. That has meant that we haven’t been getting the quality of teachers we would like. The faculty of education is the last choice for incoming university students,” Dr Rung laments.

“We expect things to improve in the future, but at the moment there has been little progress. Salaries for teachers are still very low,” he says.

The most disappointing area in educational reform to date, according to Dr Rung, is in the field of educational technology. The problem, he says, lies squarely with the failure thus far to establish the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) as mandated by the constitution.

“If the NTC were in operation, all the nation’s airwaves would be considered national resources with very high value. And if things were to go according to the constitution, the government would have to open them for bidding. At the moment, this is not happening.

"Under the system prescribed by the constitution," Dr Rung explains, "someone who opens a TV station would have to bid for the right and, by law, part of the money would go to a fund for educational technology. We have estimated that total income received by the government from radio, television, mobile phones and other types of telecommunications would be more than 100 billion baht. If we were to get ten percent of this, it would be 10 billion baht for upgrading education technology.

"As a result, we might have a special educational channel, for example. But as long as the commission is still not functioning, we can’t move forward on this. That is why this must be considered the weakest point in the educational reform process," Dr Rung comments.

Overall then, educational reform in Thailand is indeed a mixed picture, but in Dr Rung’s mind the trends are definitely positive.

"If you ask whether we are satisfied with progress overall, we are. And we are still moving forward. It is not the same as before we had the education law. We are continually pushing and, area by area, we are seeing successes."

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Last modified: September 22, 2003