Are there any options to the Salesian School?

[MrPlum]

I believe schools today are increasingly reflective of the needs of corporations and the 'elites', where labour is educated enough to operate machines, join the military, obey orders and not indulge in critical thinking. Look at the 'dumbed-down' kids being released into the wild in the UK and US. The wealthy get the better education and opportunities. What can you do?

Thailand schools may be more indoctrination sheds than islands of creativity but aren't most schools for the masses?

Our much lauded western education may not be quite what we think. Is the history we were taught really true? Is the 'science' about global warming not bunkum? Is it right that we cut up frogs to produce the next generation of cold-hearted vivisectionists? If we are taught that GM food is saving the world from starvation, is that right? Are industrial farming methods and chemicals really the best way to conserve the planet and feed ourselves? Is the economics we were taught hogwash because no-one ever taught us how our money system really works? Did Columbus really discover America? Who was really behind the drugs trade, the slave trade? You get the idea. Aren't we discovering that the world we were taught about in school is in fact very different?

And what does our expensive education give us? There are few creative innovators in our own societies because let's face it most of us are sheep. Happy to have someone else lead us. A public servant may be a smarty-pants but he is still a 'servant'. I've lost count of the number of people with IQs of 140+ being managed by those with an IQ of less than 100.

I love the colours and enthusiasm of the children here during sports days or cheer-leading events. I don't see the casual violence and aggression you get in UK public schools and if the children sit and listen, at risk of being smacked with a ruler, then I am happy to donate rulers. At that age, it is carrot or stick. What do you do if carrot doesn't work? Say "please?" Good luck with that. Teachers lost the option to discipline their students in the UK and the job became a nightmare. Obviously it is different if the punishment is unjust.

If your child has any intelligence at all then they will, like MrS, succeed despite the best efforts of educators to extinguish it. Where I see problems is socially, where other children bring in alcohol or spray paint the toilets, that kind of thing.

Walking around Salesian yesterday, during a school break, I saw happy well-behaved children playing. It didn't look at all as described in a previous post. I'm not saying that view is false but perhaps the problem lies with our expectations? We worry about the quality of education when what matters more is those aspects of human nature that enable us to live together in harmony.

How will a child in Thailand fare, who challenges the status quo? Will they be promoted for embarrassing their thick boss. Or fired? What about the colour of their skin? What's the point of going to university if you're only seen as being suitable as a maid or prostitute?

As far as I can tell and I haven't looked into it, Thailand is still 70% rural. It is not really a technocratic society. Who is going to work on the farm if the children are all educated? Isn't the education system reflecting that?

I was surprised about Thailand being top in English in 1997. What happened?

[moja]

I hope it was not Fr Smith testing your daughter's English as his leaves a lot to be desired at times. Every Sunday we hear Ret us play instead of Let us pray, he also talks about miseries when it should be mysteries and I will leave you to imagine how he says flock, this is especially 'funny' when said in conjunction with ship instead of sheep!

[Takiap]

HHTel, some of the things which you mention played a large role in our decision to rather not send our girl there. As you can see from an earlier post, we were going to send our eldest daughter there but then we changed our minds for a number of reasons, some of which you have discussed in your post.

Like you, my wife and I simply cannot afford to send our kids to one of the international schools here, so for the time being, they are staying in the same school they've been in all along. We've been quite happy with the school other than the fact that there's very little English taught to the kids. Strangely enough, the number of mixed race kids seems to be increasing steadily.

[Homer]

Their mother and I went to the school yesterday to ask Fr Smith the reasoning behind the school policy of such extended hours. He wasn't available and we were told to come back at a later time. We duly went back to the school and waited outside his office. Eventually, he sent a teacher to see us saying that he refuses to meet or talk with us!!!! How very rude and unprofessional. He had the chance of giving us the reasons for this particular policy but refused point blank. We may even have agreed with him after listening to his views.

From what I've learned about Thai culture in 3 years, Fr. Smith was not the one being rude. When in Rome ...

[alleykat]

Like you, my wife and I simply cannot afford to send our kids to one of the international schools here, so for the time being, they are staying in the same school they've been in all along. We've been quite happy with the school other than the fact that there's very little English taught to the kids. Strangely enough, the number of mixed race kids seems to be increasing steadily.

Do you mean international schools in Thailand, or in Hua Hin?
There are no international Schools in Hua Hin.

[nanyang]

If I were allowed to pose two questions to all of you disgruntled, Western, parents my questions are:

1) What academic qualifications do you expect the Thai educational system to have provided your offspring with at (say) sixteen?

2) What, relevant to a life outside of Thailand, qualifications do you expect the Thai educational system to provide?

Mr Plum, you are most welcome to reply but I don't wish to be warned about kindergarden (sic) posts.

[MrPlum]

If I were allowed to pose two questions to all of you disgruntled, Western, parents my questions are:

1) What academic qualifications do you expect the Thai educational system to have provided your offspring with at (say) sixteen?

2) What, relevant to a life outside of Thailand, qualifications do you expect the Thai educational system to provide?

Mr Plum, you are most welcome to reply but I don't wish to be warned about kindergarden (sic) posts.

Then don't make them.

[Frank Hovis]

If I were allowed to pose two questions to all of you disgruntled, Western, parents my questions are:

Who or what is holding you back ?

[nanyang]

If I were allowed to pose two questions to all of you disgruntled, Western, parents my questions are:

Who or what is holding you back ?

Nobody or nothing, if you're interested, please, feel free to answer the questions.

[Frank Hovis]

I'm not disgruntled but my children are at Somtawin and they are following a Thai Ed. Dept. approved English program which is similar to UK state schools, providing IGCSE qualifications which are an acceptable basis for entry into the International Baccalaureate program. Both IGCSE and IB are recognised worldwide, including here in Thailand.

[nanyang]

[quote="Frank Hovis" my children are at Somtawin and they are following a Thai Ed. Dept. approved English program which is similar to UK state schools,[/quote]


I fully understand what you are saying but the problem lies in the word 'similar'.

[Frank Hovis]

What problem ?

[JimmyGreaves]

What we saying here? Forget about a good education for your child in Hua Hin?

[MrPlum]

This article is worth posting in full... http://voices.yahoo.com/education-thail ... 89841.html

Not sure where Salesian sits but overall the situation is depressing...

'Education in Thailand: A Terrible Failure'

I taught in the Thai education system for more than three years and during this time learned quickly how bad the education system in Thailand really is. Plagued by inadequate funding, huge class sizes (more than 50 students to a class), terrible teacher training, lazy students and a system that forces teachers to pass students even though they've actually failed - there doesn't seem to be much hope education in Thailand will improve any time soon.

I taught in a private bi-lingual school, so had many less problems than exist in government schools. Even here though, the school falls under Ministry of Education bureaucracy, which is one of the most ridiculously inept in the world. Rules change every semester, new guidelines are handed down to teachers regarding course content, lesson plans, testing etc at the beginning of each new semester, then change again the following semester. Teachers are told to pass students, even though they've failed, and a blind eye is turned to serious problems like plagiarizing.

Every year, the Ministry of Education brings into effect another bright idea for improving education in Thailand. This year's bright idea is to force every Western teacher teaching in Thailand to take a Thai Culture course. Regardless that many teachers have been here for years and are well-versed in Thai culture, in order to get a teacher's license or renew one, they will be forced to take this course. As the course costs between $110 and $300, money that has to be paid by the teacher, many teachers are saying they will not do it. I already know of two excellent teachers who have left Thailand to go to Korea and Japan to teach instead.

In most other countries in South East Asia, Western teachers are paid more, it's easier to get work permits with less hoops to jump through, and the Ministry of Education in these countries is much more forward thinking. Thailand already has problems getting and keeping good, qualified Western teachers. Implementing this new law will simply mean even more of these teachers will go elsewhere.

In most countries, government organizations are known to not be particularly effective. The Ministry of Education in Thailand though, is the worst government organization I have ever dealt with. When I was teaching at my last school, I was approached for help in English grammar one day by the Thai computer teacher who was very upset because he'd just been chastised by a representative from the Ministry of Education. The Ministry representative had seen some work he had been doing with the kids and had told him very rudely that he should make sure the English wording on the kids' Mother's Day greeting cards was correct. This coming from a representative of an organization that routinely sends forms in English to Western teachers that don't have even one grammatically correct English sentence on them. Some of them were so unintelligible my boss would just chuck them in the nearest garbage can.

Thailand is now facing a crisis in education. Thai students are not taught to think for themselves so have no critical thinking skills. At government schools, more than 50 students in a class is the norm. Half the kids just sleep through class, as the teacher doesn't notice if they're listening or not. Books are limited, science equipment doesn't exist in a lot of schools, and Western teachers in government schools are often the dregs of society. But as the schools can't afford to pay more than $750 a month, they get what they pay for. (Many of these 'teachers' are old men without college degrees who simply came to Thailand because of the Thai women, then ended up teaching as it's one of the few jobs Westerners are allowed to do).

In order to try to solve the problem of unqualified Western teachers, Thailand is now clamping down on tourist visas. These unqualified teachers cannot get work permits so they live here on tourist visas, leaving the country and renewing them every 3 months. Now it's going to be more difficult to do this. However, the only thing this new tourist visa restriction will do is to penalize the true tourist to Thailand. The guys who are getting them illegally, will just choose to stay in Thailand illegally, so nothing will change.

Meanwhile, education in countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia, Korea and China is improving in leaps and bounds. Thailand is set to fall to the bottom of the pile of southeastern Asian countries both educationally and economically, yet the government and the Education Ministry wastes their time on ridiculous new rules, instead of a more common sense way of dealing with things.

Firstly, if the government simply mandated that a college degree and a TEFL certificate were the basic qualifications to teach in Thailand, this would rid them of most of the Western men here who aren't qualified to teach. Secondly, if they increased teacher salaries for both Thais and Westerners, they would get better qualified teachers. As it stands right now, Thai schools pay the exact same low wages they did when I came here five years ago. Yet prices in the last five years have gone up more than 20%. Thirdly, if the government made getting a work permit easy for qualified individuals, instead of the mess it is now, teachers would come here and would stay. But at the moment, you can get a visa, work permit and a better paying job in Korea, China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Japan. So why come to Thailand?

However, things are not likely to change in Thailand any time soon. Thai society is all about saving face and appearance is everything. The Ministry never listens when it's given advice by teachers who know better than them what Thai education needs. And as long as the way a kid looks is more important than what the kid knows, Thailand's education system is a lost cause. Thailand will continue to fall further behind in the education game and the better Western teachers will continue to leave. But hey, who cares, at least the kids look cute when they're all parading around in their Scouts uniforms. Just a pity less than 10% can actually speak more than 20 words of English correctly and a lot of them aren't very good at Thai either.

[buksida]

And as long as the way a kid looks is more important than what the kid knows, Thailand's education system is a lost cause. Thailand will continue to fall further behind in the education game and the better Western teachers will continue to leave. But hey, who cares, at least the kids look cute when they're all parading around in their Scouts uniforms.

That's pretty spot on, getting seriously disgruntled with our school since they spend more time preparing shows for the kids to prance around on stage than actually doing any teaching. Those that don't participate in dressing up like the opposite sex, wearing makeup, and gyrating to adult songs so the parents can giggle away and tap photos on their iPads are left to twiddle their thumbs at the back of the classroom - great education.

Rant over ...