Thailand eyes lifelong learning push

[Nereus]

Thailand eyes lifelong learning push

https://www.bangkokpost.com/news/genera ... rning-push

Thailand needs to make lifelong learning a national imperative to build a competitive workforce for the so-called disruptive era, as the formal education system can no longer "future-proof" degrees for the jobs of tomorrow, according to the South East Asia Centre (SEAC).

Arinya Talerngsri, chief capability officer and managing director of SEAC, said that with Thailand depending on its human capital to propel the nation into the next phase of economic development, it is time for the country to change attitudes that once associated life success only with high academic degrees.

It should encourage people to adopt a new mentality about education under the concept of lifelong learning, where learning continues at all stages of life.

"The problem is that, while the world itself is changing and the business landscape is evolving, our learning and educational systems are outdated and have failed to adapt effectively," Ms Arinya said. "The education system we have today is producing a workforce of people who are skilled for an era that is ending or already over."

She said that to be a productive lifelong worker in today's economy, people have to be lifelong learners who can keep pace with the evolving technological landscape, which means brushing up on existing skills, adding new ones and even retraining over the course of their entire careers.

"Every job today and in the future will require constant learning and development," she said. "Therefore, lifelong learning is fundamental to long-term success."

To promote public awareness of the issue, SEAC recently invested over 600 million baht to establish the first lifelong learning centre in Asean to help people change their mindsets and build a "lifelong learning ecosystem" and culture in Thailand and Asean.

The centre is also developing a new learning approach called "4Line Learning" which allows individuals to learn from four different platforms.

The learning approach is comprised of four major components. The first is "online learning", which focuses on learning through video clips and visuals. The second is "in-line learning" where learners are encouraged to participate in classes and courses, arranged for mostly a short duration of no longer than half a day.

The third is "beeline learning", which underlines experience and data exchanges with experts, speakers, prominent business operators and thought leaders, and engages students in special activities that best suit each learning topic.

The fourth is "frontline learning" where learners are given full access to downloadable materials and data.

According to SEAC, there will be over 100 "online learning" courses, 40 "in-line learning" programmes, 40 "beeline learning" activities and "frontline learning" data archives that allow unlimited downloads.

[RCer]

Get rid of the caste system first. Then make ALL public schools teach the same curriculum and for free. Test the students weekly, not just on what they learned that week, but 6 months ago.

Failure IS an option. Those who pass, progress to the next level. Those who fail take the course again until they learn it.

Put formal driver education in starting at age 10 for safety's sake. Then make the driver training more advanced every year until age 18.

Teach about the whole world. Make conversational English (the international standard of business) mandatory starting in the first year and continue through university.

[migrant]

But if they educate the children that is going to bring in a generation that asks questions, not just following the leader......

[Nereus]

I guess that this lady is in it to make money, but she writes a lot of good sense. (just wish she would post her phone number )
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Transforming organisational learning for the new generation

https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/ne ... 8#cxrecs_s

Formal education including schools and universities is part of learning -- but it definitely isn’t the only way we can learn, nor does the learning stop there. Learning is a never-ending process, something you nurture at school and eventually bring to your work or business.

Stanford Online High School is a great example of this. Although seemingly a formal educational institution and affiliated with the famous California university, it integrates extra-curricular activities, online learning and classroom study throughout the day. Even when they are not in the classroom, students are constantly learning through every activity they do.

Nurturing learning in your organisation is important, and I think it’s especially critical for the newer generations that are starting to play a major role in the workplace.

As the pace of change accelerates, demand for skills keeps shifting, and young people in particular need to be prepared to adapt. Therefore it’s crucial to constantly transform organisational learning, keeping in mind that these young people are the future for your organisation.

First, expectations have changed. The newer generations grew up with technology, using computers or phones for both leisure and study. Their expectations of learning will also evolve. Second, younger people tend to place a greater value on having a sense of purpose and being able to contribute something of value to their teams and the organisation.

That said, there are no age limitations when it comes to learning. To get the best out of learning, it should be lifelong and continuous, regardless of age. That’s why it’s so important to nurture earning in your organisation.
The following are just some ways you can transform organisational learning to motivate and engage the younger generation while also creating a welcoming learning environment for others.

First, personalise learning and make it readily available anywhere at any time. Technology has made this easy. Providing this convenience for your people is important. For one, it allows them to learn continuously, without having to compromise their existing schedules. Another great thing is that they can easily personalise their own learning, making it more effective as it reflects their interests and goals.

Second, make learning available in bite-sized pieces. Keep in mind that people’s attention spans are getting shorter in the age content clutter, and distraction takes a toll on learning retention. Keep the learning content brief enough to hold their attention but meaningful enough that they will learn something of value from it.

Additionally, you don’t want your people to experience information overload as they will start to dread learning sessions, and most likely won’t remember anything. Providing them a sufficient amount of information allows them to learn enough for the time being.

Third, make learning a journey of discovery, not something you do in one concentrated period and then stop. Learning is not about cramming information into your mind, it’s about discovering new things and how you can apply them.

Just as making sure learning is bite-sized will improve retention, portraying it as a journey of discovery will ensure people remember the knowledge they’ve gained and will be able to put it into practice.

Last, constantly promote a lifelong learning mindset within the organisation. Learning is often equated with studying. But studying is about attaining knowledge, while learning about attaining knowledge and applying it practically.

Learning can seem like a chore, but the fact is, it is something we are already doing. Sometimes we’re unaware that it is happening, such as when we’re having conversations with peers or reading news articles. Promoting and nurturing this mindset is key to a continuously learning and growing organisation.

Learning is rewarding in many ways and as human beings, we’re natural learners. Our world, the workforce and the workplace will keep changing, but the one constant that allows us to stay ahead is our desire to keep learning.

[RCer]

The newer generations grew up with technology, using computers or phones for both leisure and study.

Love this part. Kids here only use phones for chatting and taking selfies.

Sit them in front of a computer and tell the to research something, they'd be totally lost.

[Nereus]

Some more from my favorite writer:
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Getting started on change to improve learning

https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/ne ... e-learning

We’re fast approaching the New Year, when many of us will be making resolutions because we want to change ourselves for the better and help improve the things around us.

We all want change but sometimes we cannot go through with it. One of the things we all want to change is the way learning takes place in our society.

We’ve all been talking about creating a change in learning culture but not much seems to have been accomplished so far. On the one hand, people want to see change start happening today. But on the other, they are losing hope that change will happen because if it didn’t happen earlier, it probably won’t in the future either.

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[StevePIraq]

The newer generations grew up with technology, using computers or phones for both leisure and study.

Love this part. Kids here only use phones for chatting and taking selfies.

Sit them in front of a computer and tell the to research something, they'd be totally lost.

That is not correct for all Thai children. I previously had two Thai step children and while I believe their education including university was atrocious, when given a project to do they where very capable of finding all kinds of resources on the web and putting it together.

[Nereus]

Six pointers on learning how to learn

https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/ne ... w-to-learn

WRITER: ARINYA TALERNGSRI

Humans are natural learners. At a young age, we learn how to walk and talk. We then progress through formal education at school, and many of us ago on to university to acquire more knowledge to pursue what we want to do in life.

Although learning comes naturally to us, we often forget how to learn, or what learning really means. Many people use the terms “learning” and “studying” interchangeably, but the truth is, they’re not the same.

While both terms refer to seeking and attaining knowledge, the crucial difference is that studying is associated with formal education, while learning can happen beyond the classroom and goes beyond acquiring knowledge to actually applying it in daily situations or at work and business.

This is why learning “how to learn” is essential. There are even online courses devoted to this very subject. But the reason why we need to relearn learning is that many of us are still stuck in the trap of believing that “studying” is the only way to succeed and that all learning ends with school.

Let’s take a look at how you can start to reframe your thoughts on learning and apply what you are learning.
First, understand that learning doesn’t only come from reading books or going to classes. If you want to truly learn and transform yourself, you take your learning anywhere. Whether it’s through conversations with people knowledgeable in a certain topic or online courses and video tutorials, you can still learn.

That’s not to say that you should immediately abandon books or drop all the classes you need to take, but you do need to understand that learning entails having a good blend of different activities that suit your real learning needs.
Second, scope out other ways to learn that could work for you. This could be anything from taking online courses to going out to networking events. The point is to expose yourself to different ways of learning.

Third, make learning digestible, just like cutting food into bite-sized pieces. Sitting in a lecture hall for hours or trying to read a book for a whole day for the purpose of learning can sometimes be overwhelming — and even a waste of time. It’s not only going to bore you but you won’t retain much from too many hours of doing the same thing.

Instead, divide your learning time into chunks with a break in between or a whole new activity entirely. Learning shouldn’t feel like a dreaded obligation, so don’t try to make it so. You should learn enough to get some information but not too much that you suffer from information overload.

Fourth, leave some time to reflect and truly understand the content you’ve just learned. You should allow yourself to process the content. Learning retention tends to fall when you do not take the time to process the information you’ve just gained.

This is the purpose of dividing learning into bite-sized pieces as well — it sets aside time for your brain to naturally process the information and make sense of it.

Sixth, keep practising what you’ve learned. You never stop learning and you should never stop practicing either. It is a good way to understand what you’ve learned better, but you’re also testing your assumptions at this point. You practise, you experiment — and you learn more.

Fifth, connect with like-minded people. Learning can also take place when you’re sharing your knowledge of a topic with others. You not only test your own knowledge through your own sharing, you also learn from others through their sharing.

Connecting with others is great way to learn but it is also a great way to build and nurture a learning community. This really supports the concept of future lifelong learning, and with like-minded people around you, you won’t slack off that easily.

In sum, many of us still don’t understand what true learning entails. In our modern, highly competitive era, understanding how continuous learning supports skill development and future success is so important. Continuous learning is the key to the future and we must do our part by first learning how to truly learn.

For this coming new year, let’s make learning how to actually learn part of our New Year’s resolutions and make it really happen.

[handdrummer]

It's interesting that teachers rarely address different ways of learning. Some learn by reading, some by touch, some by hearing, some are visual learners and most are some combination. In a classroom there is usually only 2 ways to learn: by reading or aurally and those who learn differently are frequently left behind and are thought to be slow learners or incapable of learning the material. One size doesn't fit all.

[RCer]

It's interesting that teachers rarely address different ways of learning. Some learn by reading, some by touch, some by hearing, some are visual learners and most are some combination. In a classroom there is usually only 2 ways to learn: by reading or aurally and those who learn differently are frequently left behind and are thought to be slow learners or incapable of learning the material. One size doesn't fit all.

Very true. Then complicate further with a society like this which shuns those who excel.

[oakdale160]

I have heard this story several times. Thai children who have an ex-pat father or stepfather and who are fluently bi-lingual, dumb down on their English abilities in the classroom as they know that the teacher will resent their abilities.
By contrast, when I was in school, we had a French-Canadian boy in my year, the French teacher used him as an assistant to help the rest of us (To this day, when I want to swear, I do so in French, thank you, Jean-Luc)

[handdrummer]

Then complicate further with a society like this which shuns those who excel.


Only the lower classes. The wealthy encourage excellence, in fact demand it. That's how you remain the ruling class.

[Takiap]

The newer generations grew up with technology, using computers or phones for both leisure and study.

Love this part. Kids here only use phones for chatting and taking selfies.

Sit them in front of a computer and tell the to research something, they'd be totally lost.

That is not correct for all Thai children. I previously had two Thai step children and while I believe their education including university was atrocious, when given a project to do they where very capable of finding all kinds of resources on the web and putting it together.

I agree. My oldest girl routinely comes home these days with projects to do, and she spends ages on the computer finding all the info she needs in order to complete her projects. I can't comment on all schools, but this certainly seems to be the case at Salesians.