Local Thais have no interest in learning English

[margaretcarnes]

One more barrier being erected to keep the poor in their place. Teach children from wealthy homes English but no effort in govt schools.
!

It is looking that way, and I'm sure Jingjoes observations of the attitudes of younger wealthier Thais to the education of their children is correct.
But first - it could be years before that new wave of kids, who are properly taught English, are ready for the workplace and all that entails in the Asean Community. They are the kids who would be best placed anyway for the kind of jobs with companies, or Government Departments, which will surely be at the cutting edge of business with other Asean members?
Yes that does exclude hundreds of thousands of potentially bright youngsters who could potentially climb the ladder given the chance, and we all know that will happen.
But do we really want to see Thailand end up in a similar situation to the UK? University places for all - great - and where are the jobs for the graduates?
All well and good improving the education system. Give all Thai schoolchildren the opportunity to learn a second language if they want to. But don't expect them all to strive to be fluent, or to be very interested in the Asean Community, or to want anything more than to be able to get by.
Thailand will get wherever it wants to be in it's own sweet time, and I kind of like it that way.

[VincentD]

TO continue. A doctor friend of mine (Thai-Chinese) who sent his older son to school and university in the UK is sending his younger son to school in S'pore where he will improve both his English and Mandarin. I hear that there is another trend in Hi-So families of employing filippino nannies rather than local women to care for the children as these maids speak English to the children.

Dr Mike
Do bear with some of my comments below:

First, some background.
I am Singaporean. I do go back at least once a year to visit Mum and Dad. I have been resident in Thailand for more than twenty years. I have kids here.

We have two filipino maids at home in Singapore. One for the general housework, the other to care exclusively for my father, who is bedridden. (Mum is eighty, Dad is older). The maids are employed not because of their English, but because the locals do not want to do this work. We used to have an amah but age catches up with everyone so she left.

My brother/sister have kids in Singapore. I am fully aware of how the education system works. It is also not cheap anymore. It is a very pressurised system; only now are they trying to get away from rote learning. There is no emphasis whatsoever on speaking good (or even decent) English as the main language being spoken is Mandrin. There are two different forms of Mandrin; Hanyu Pinyin, which is what the Singapore government is pushing, and the Mandrin that comes with the immigrants from China. Hanyu Pinyin is a simplified form of Mandrin.

It is not the Singapore I came from. Think colonial British with proper English being spoken by practically everyone.

My comments:
I, for one, would not be happy if my kids grew up speaking English with an accent that is not mine.
Do note that English is not the maid's first language. Tagalog is.
Understand why, even though I am from Singapore, that I did not send my son there for an education. He gets a much better all round education here IMO.
Sending someone to the UK for a decent education makes sense. It is an English-speaking country. At least the last time I looked.


Mags
once the borders are down, there will be a mad outrush by the nurses to get jobs in Singapore paying maybe triple what they get here. Singaporean guys will rush over here for half of what they're getting just so they can go to Patpong every other night. The high speed rail link between Bangkok and Hua Hin will be scrapped and a committee will be formed into looking at extending the Skytrain past the river and on through to Singapore. It will be a project that would make the 'Chunnel' pale in comparison.
Time for my morning coffee.

[johnnyk]

Good points Dr Mike. China has been using "economy based colonialism" for centuries. Although this book is not very scholarly, it does provide a chatty and mostly interesting history of this:

Lords of the Rim by Sterling Seagrave

An excellent book but basically about the 20th century. China did zip internationally from the 15th century and for 200 years until the early 20th century was not in a position to be a colonialist power being under the western thumb.

[Bristolian]

That said, ASEAN will almost certainly be a losing proposition for Thailand. As the borders and protections come down, the more numerous Burmese islands and temples will be more attractive to the tourist sector; the industrial sector will seek better infrastructure, skilled cheaper labour, and a land border to China in Vietnam. Thailand's economy in the future looks likely to be squeezed. IMHO, if their xenophobia results in anything, it will be to cause their increasing impoverishment over the next century or so.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/35 ... pert-warns

AEC will fuel inequality, expert warns

The creation of the Asean Economic Community (AEC) will create a new group of underprivileged people in Thailand,
an academic has warned.

Sirinan Kittisuksathit of Mahidol University's Institute for Population and Social Research said she had found through a
study that a new underprivileged group would emerge as a result of the AEC's launch in 2015, mainly because they
will lack the language skills to compete in a regional market.

The dignity of people in this group and their potential would be ignored and inequality in careers, income and social
status would open up, she said.

The new underprivileged group would cover a wide range of people, including youths, school and university students,
graduates and working-age people.

She said double standards would be applied in the education system, recruitment and in the workplace after the AEC
was established. Social inequality and widening income gaps would result. Ms Sirinan urged state agencies to find
ways to minimise the impacts on these people following the launch of the AEC.

As the AEC will allow free movement of skilled labour in eight professions _ doctors, dentists, nurses, engineers,
architects, accountants, surveyors and workers in the hospitality sector _ Thai students studying in these fields would
become underprivileged, the researcher said.

The free flow of labour would put Thai workers at a disadvantage as their language skills were poor compared with those from other Asean countries.Foreign workers with good language skills would be paid better wages, receive more welfare benefits and have better
career advancement prospects, she said.

The launch of the AEC would also worsen the lives of existing underprivileged groups in Thailand, such as stateless
people and the poor.

Children from these groups would be at risk of human trafficking, sexual abuse, and being lured into the drug trade
and criminal gangs, she said.

[dtaai-maai]

Pretty self-evident really, as is the solution.

The message "Thais don't have the same level of skills as graduates from most other ASEAN countries, therefore they will be at a disadvantage."

The (obvious) solution: provide them with the education and the specific skills they need, and soon.

[Korkenzieher]

Regarding Bristolian's contrib...

I think there is a tendency in Thailand to see the local employment situation as the main risk, due to opening up the labour market. I'm not wholly convinced since to work in Thailand would almost certainly require Thai language skills at least in the short term. Many Thai would find it hard to work in other economies, but no more so than Brits would find it hard to work in Germany or France.

I see a much bigger threat just from trade and industry which once upon a time might have come to Thailand, going elsewhere.

Thailand has had 'first-mover advantage' in much of South-East Asia since the Vietnam War ended. Closed economies (Laos, Myanmar), erratic leadership (Malaysia, Indonesia) and trade embargoes (Vietnam, Cambodia) largely gave it the status, or at least the image of being the only country in the region open for business. As those other countries open their economies, Thailand could take a battering. Why would Honda, say, expose themselves to more risk in Thailand when they can diversify their risk by building newer plant in say Hanoi?

In any case - labour mobility or investment mobility - Thailand's 'edge' will disappear. And quickly.

[margaretcarnes]

Pretty self-evident really, as is the solution.

The message "Thais don't have the same level of skills as graduates from most other ASEAN countries, therefore they will be at a disadvantage."

The (obvious) solution: provide them with the education and the specific skills they need, and soon.

Providing them with the education and specific skills is certainly an obvious answer. But there are two barriers to that which immediately spring to mind.
First - the provision of an education which enables and encourages students to broaden their expectations and aims can never happen in an educational system which actively discourages freedom of thought and expression.
Second - an educational system such as the one which exists now is not best placed to even begin to identify specific skills. To be able to do that implies that students are made aware of the potential job market which is likely to exist when they have completed their education. In other words students need to know roughly what they are working towards, and what qualifications they need in order to achieve their aim.
So there needs to be a broad understanding on the part of the schools about what skills will be needed in the big wide world, and there needs to also be specialists within the education system who can advise and help to guide students along a suitable career path.

[margaretcarnes]

[quote="Bristolian"][quote="Korkenzieher"]

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/35 ... pert-warns

AEC will fuel inequality, expert warns

The creation of the Asean Economic Community (AEC) will create a new group of underprivileged people in Thailand,
an academic has warned.




As the AEC will allow free movement of skilled labour in eight professions _ doctors, dentists, nurses, engineers,
architects, accountants, surveyors and workers in the hospitality sector _ Thai students studying in these fields would
become underprivileged, the researcher said.

The free flow of labour would put Thai workers at a disadvantage as their language skills were poor compared with those from other Asean countries.Foreign workers with good language skills would be paid better wages, receive more welfare benefits and have better
career advancement prospects, she said.


Thai workers have no need to worry about their language skills. A lack of English language skills hasn't prevented a free flow of European doctors into the NHS.

[Bristolian]

I happened to be talking to a Thai doctor and recruitment specialist for the medical profession, yesterday. They claim that the language barrier will actually work in both directions.

Currently doctors in Thailand need to pass their examinations in Thai language, all of the examination papers etc are in Thai language and they have no plan to change this in the future. I was told that there is only one foreign doctor permitted to practice, alone, in Bangkok and that he was able to both speak and read/write Thai perfectly. Apparently there are more foreign doctors practicing medicine here but if they have not taken their examinations in Thai language they must be supervised by a Thai doctor at all times, which of course makes the practice prohibitively expensive in most cases. The doctors have already been promised by the government that the current practice will not change under AEC. This would appear to be a major stumbling block if Thailand does indeed intend to join.

[Big Boy]

The medical aspects of this thread have been moved here viewtopic.php?f=24&t=24139

[Name Taken]

Interesting notion that Thailand will somehow try to weasel out of ASEAN. With their rampant mercantilism and penchant for (tacit approval of) underhandedness, I wouldn't be surprised either. I reckon it's more likely they'll remain signed-up until the first big hurdle -- then they'll fabricate some bizarre reason for leaving.
It'll make perfect sense to the Thais; everyone else will be gobsmacked. If only the other countries understood what it means to be Thai.

[Name Taken]

There are over 60 countries where English is an official language (more than 80 if you count non-soveriegn states). That said, English is going to be the predominant language for a long time to come. Only one country in the world speaks Thai!

[Name Taken]

I think I have commented on this before, but I met a Chinese teacher in Ranong a couple of years back. China sends (and pays 50% of the salary for) between 1000 and 1500 teachers to Thailand every year because it sees a benefit to having Thais learn Mandarin. Clearly, if Thais are going to get something for nothing, then it is going to appeal more. European nations, and the UK in particular, are not likely to make that kind of investment. As it is, within Thailand, most Thais only see English as a means to deal with tourists, and as a percentage of the tourist market, Europeans are rapidly being replaced with Asians. The Thais could be forgiven for thinking that the need for English *In Thailand* is shrinking.

That said, ASEAN will almost certainly be a losing proposition for Thailand. As the borders and protections come down, the more numerous Burmese islands and temples will be more attractive to the tourist sector; the industrial sector will seek better infrastructure, skilled cheaper labour, and a land border to China in Vietnam. Thailand's economy in the future looks likely to be squeezed. IMHO, if their xenophobia results in anything, it will be to cause their increasing impoverishment over the next century or so.

[barrys]

Be it English or whatever subject, there are obviously deep-rooted problems in the system as a whole.

This short report shows just how deep the crisis is:

http://thainews.prd.go.th/centerweb/new ... 7030010001

[bapak]

Be it English or whatever subject, there are obviously deep-rooted problems in the system as a whole.

This short report shows just how deep the crisis is:

http://thainews.prd.go.th/centerweb/new ... 7030010001

Please tell me what ".....The Office of the Basic Education Commission (OBEC) has revealed that less than 10 percent of test takers passed the 60%" means. 1%, 5%, ??? Can't they put an exact percentage or was it not taught in school?