Education in Udon Thani
Thailand of course has an education system but it is not on a par with the UK education system (that in itself is a serious understatement). It is free though for 12 years through the Thai constitution and of those 12 years, 9 of them are mandatory and surprisingly perhaps 28% of Thai GDP and the national budget are allocated to education (according to Wikipedia).
Schools in the cities and large towns are well provided for but the schools out in rural areas do not receive such generous funding so the children in remote areas are probably educated to an even lesser degree.
One thing I do like is that school uniforms in Thailand MUST be worn, even on days when they have a dress down/sports day, it is still a uniform but just less formal. This applies to all children at all levels of education including kindergarten school through to University Students. Hair for both boys and girls is to be short (except for Universities), in the case of girls they can wear hair shoulder length and that is short as you will notice most Thai women have long hair.
Sports day - What actually happens is, once a week, for about 1 hour, the kids do a little sport which might only mean jogging. They do not have showers after the sport, but wear the clothes they wore for the sport all day! Quite incredible just how the schools work here.
Each semester/term at primary school the children are taught 8 core subjects - science, health & physical education, music & arts, social science, mathematics, Thai language, technology and foreign languages. At primary and secondary school level, the children have access to a special English learning program. An obvious difference here is that subjects such as physics, biology & chemistry are not separate subjects. Also note the glaring omission of both geography and history! It is safe to say that Thai's know very little even about the geographical nature of their own country let alone the rest of the world and the same applies for history.
Put simply, there has, in years gone by, an astonishing disregard for anything outside of the country although news bulletins do report on sports and big world events these days so at least most Thais are aware there is life beyond their borders.
I totally despair when it comes to our daughter being taught English at school, by a teacher who has no knowledge of the language! Thankfully our 10 year old daughter is learning to speak English quite well, helped of course by having to speak it every day if she wants anything from me. That does nothing for her writing or reading of the language though, and that remains limited to copying words in books, or writing single words to describe a picture (cat, balloon, lion etc...). Schools are increasingly making use of English speaking ferang to teach English in Udon Thani and there are quite a number of private English language schools in Udon Thani too but to give you an indication of how poor either the education is or the teaching of English is, a mark in excess of 30% for the O-NET examination at secondary school is above average! There certainly does appear to be a fear of the language and something I have witnessed with 2 of my new younger relatives. A nephew who is now 16 and his sister 18. He will try to talk to me a little whereas his sister get's incredibly shy or perhaps even scared to try and talk in this alien language (to her). To get a half decent grasp of English, a child really does need to attend a private school, such as the Don Bosco school, or private tuition at home. This really is the only chance of learning anywhere near properly.
Computers are increasingly available at schools now, even at kindergarten level in Udon Thani which is obviously good so in time computer skills may become on a par with anywhere else but I suspect the skills are taught in Thai so perhaps may be limited to using Windows applications in Thai only and actual computer programming is a non starter as a decent grasp of English is required.
There are a number of private schools in Udon Thani and indeed we have some in our local city where the education seems to be that much higher and these children typically go on to a university education as their parents can afford the luxury of being able to provide the best education money can buy in Thailand.
Entrance to university based on exam results but some potentially bright children do not get the opportunity to progress to this level due to their families limited income but I guess that is no different to many other countries.
To be fair to the Thai authorities they are always looking to improve the education system but they remain some years behind many countries and this applies to many other aspects of life in Thailand too. From what my wife tells me, education has really only become 'fashionable' in the last 25 years or so, and goes on to explain that here 51 year old mother (when she dies 12 years ago), could only write and read her name in Thai, although could of course speak it fluently. Her classes at school consisted of nothing other than learning to speak the language. The thinking at that time, in the Issan region, was that people did not need to learn anything else as their life would consist of little more than farming and looking after the house and family. Quite shocking for someone from the western world to hear about this being the case so recently. I know the UK education system was not what it is today during the same period, but it was still well advanced by comparison.
From a personal point of view I still need to be convinced the teachers in Thailand are actually capable of teaching the subjects they do or even if they know how to get a little more out of the children to improve results, or maybe that is just in Udon Thani, perhaps Bangkok is better. There seem to be many teacher training days throughout the year so obviously (or should that be hopefully) attempts are being made to address such concerns but as with everything else it takes a long time to change the mind-set. Indeed, the more I see and hear, the more I am convinced that Thailand pays little more than lip service to education, and of course to save face on the outside world, they are least being seen to be trying, although the reality is they should be trying much, much harder.
One last comment on education. We have a daughter that is nearly 10 years old and she cannot tell the time by looking at a clock! When I moved from England my 4 year old son could tell the time as that is what they were taught in pre-school (kindergarten equivalent)! I personally find this quite shocking and find that it says a lot about what Thai's consider to be very different priorities and providing the best education really does not appear to be one of them in years gone by. I hope for future generations this changes, if Thailand wants to catch up with the rest of the world, and it needs to, it doesn't seem likely to happen until perhaps it is too late and the rest of the world have left them even further behind. Having said that, I do share the opinion that Thailand has already been left well behind the rest of the world with the exception of a handful of other south east Asia countries (Laos & Cambodia, for example). Other than Bangkok, and the major resort locations in the south, Thailand has definitely been left 50 or 60 years behind Europe and the rest of the civilised world. Third world country inadequately describes rural Thailand.
Schools in the cities and large towns are well provided for but the schools out in rural areas do not receive such generous funding so the children in remote areas are probably educated to an even lesser degree.
One thing I do like is that school uniforms in Thailand MUST be worn, even on days when they have a dress down/sports day, it is still a uniform but just less formal. This applies to all children at all levels of education including kindergarten school through to University Students. Hair for both boys and girls is to be short (except for Universities), in the case of girls they can wear hair shoulder length and that is short as you will notice most Thai women have long hair.
Sports day - What actually happens is, once a week, for about 1 hour, the kids do a little sport which might only mean jogging. They do not have showers after the sport, but wear the clothes they wore for the sport all day! Quite incredible just how the schools work here.
Each semester/term at primary school the children are taught 8 core subjects - science, health & physical education, music & arts, social science, mathematics, Thai language, technology and foreign languages. At primary and secondary school level, the children have access to a special English learning program. An obvious difference here is that subjects such as physics, biology & chemistry are not separate subjects. Also note the glaring omission of both geography and history! It is safe to say that Thai's know very little even about the geographical nature of their own country let alone the rest of the world and the same applies for history.
Put simply, there has, in years gone by, an astonishing disregard for anything outside of the country although news bulletins do report on sports and big world events these days so at least most Thais are aware there is life beyond their borders.
I totally despair when it comes to our daughter being taught English at school, by a teacher who has no knowledge of the language! Thankfully our 10 year old daughter is learning to speak English quite well, helped of course by having to speak it every day if she wants anything from me. That does nothing for her writing or reading of the language though, and that remains limited to copying words in books, or writing single words to describe a picture (cat, balloon, lion etc...). Schools are increasingly making use of English speaking ferang to teach English in Udon Thani and there are quite a number of private English language schools in Udon Thani too but to give you an indication of how poor either the education is or the teaching of English is, a mark in excess of 30% for the O-NET examination at secondary school is above average! There certainly does appear to be a fear of the language and something I have witnessed with 2 of my new younger relatives. A nephew who is now 16 and his sister 18. He will try to talk to me a little whereas his sister get's incredibly shy or perhaps even scared to try and talk in this alien language (to her). To get a half decent grasp of English, a child really does need to attend a private school, such as the Don Bosco school, or private tuition at home. This really is the only chance of learning anywhere near properly.
Computers are increasingly available at schools now, even at kindergarten level in Udon Thani which is obviously good so in time computer skills may become on a par with anywhere else but I suspect the skills are taught in Thai so perhaps may be limited to using Windows applications in Thai only and actual computer programming is a non starter as a decent grasp of English is required.
There are a number of private schools in Udon Thani and indeed we have some in our local city where the education seems to be that much higher and these children typically go on to a university education as their parents can afford the luxury of being able to provide the best education money can buy in Thailand.
Entrance to university based on exam results but some potentially bright children do not get the opportunity to progress to this level due to their families limited income but I guess that is no different to many other countries.
To be fair to the Thai authorities they are always looking to improve the education system but they remain some years behind many countries and this applies to many other aspects of life in Thailand too. From what my wife tells me, education has really only become 'fashionable' in the last 25 years or so, and goes on to explain that here 51 year old mother (when she dies 12 years ago), could only write and read her name in Thai, although could of course speak it fluently. Her classes at school consisted of nothing other than learning to speak the language. The thinking at that time, in the Issan region, was that people did not need to learn anything else as their life would consist of little more than farming and looking after the house and family. Quite shocking for someone from the western world to hear about this being the case so recently. I know the UK education system was not what it is today during the same period, but it was still well advanced by comparison.
From a personal point of view I still need to be convinced the teachers in Thailand are actually capable of teaching the subjects they do or even if they know how to get a little more out of the children to improve results, or maybe that is just in Udon Thani, perhaps Bangkok is better. There seem to be many teacher training days throughout the year so obviously (or should that be hopefully) attempts are being made to address such concerns but as with everything else it takes a long time to change the mind-set. Indeed, the more I see and hear, the more I am convinced that Thailand pays little more than lip service to education, and of course to save face on the outside world, they are least being seen to be trying, although the reality is they should be trying much, much harder.
One last comment on education. We have a daughter that is nearly 10 years old and she cannot tell the time by looking at a clock! When I moved from England my 4 year old son could tell the time as that is what they were taught in pre-school (kindergarten equivalent)! I personally find this quite shocking and find that it says a lot about what Thai's consider to be very different priorities and providing the best education really does not appear to be one of them in years gone by. I hope for future generations this changes, if Thailand wants to catch up with the rest of the world, and it needs to, it doesn't seem likely to happen until perhaps it is too late and the rest of the world have left them even further behind. Having said that, I do share the opinion that Thailand has already been left well behind the rest of the world with the exception of a handful of other south east Asia countries (Laos & Cambodia, for example). Other than Bangkok, and the major resort locations in the south, Thailand has definitely been left 50 or 60 years behind Europe and the rest of the civilised world. Third world country inadequately describes rural Thailand.