OP 11 Education, Economy and Identity Ten Years of Educational Reform in Thailand

The CELS is proud to announce the release of the Occasional Paper published together with the IRASEC.

Irasec – Occasional Paper n°11, September 2009, 114 p.

ISBN : 978-61616-90282-0-83

Abstract:

The last educational reform in Thailand, starting in 1999, has tried to balance two challenges: safeguarding the Thai culture and identity, and ensuring a solid basis for Thailand in a world economy oriented towards knowledge-based and high-tech goals.
Policy-makers have put the stress on strengthening “Thai local wisdom” and this has been put in practise through the obligation for schools to develop a local curriculum. This curriculum shall represent 30% of the overall teaching hours. This provision epitomises the search for a balanced schooling system, between indigenous wisdom, global knowledge and employability.
The other dimension of the reform has been to secure Thailand’s position in a context of high value-added industrialisation. Policy-makers have put the stress on the development of vocational and technical education, and cooperative education programmes. Their goals in terms of labour force training improvements have proved difficult to achieve.

The Editors:

Audrey BARON-GUTTY (Université de Lyon, Institut d’Asie Orientale) is a PhD Student in Political Science. Her thesis deals with the impact of globalisation on the making and implementation of national educational policies, with a special focus on Thailand and its educational reform launched in 1999. She was sponsored for two years by the IRASEC to carry out her field work and the CELS (Centre for Education and Labour Studies), based at Chiang Mai University, provided her with institutional support.

Supat CHUPRADIT (CELS, Faculty of Education, Chiang Mai University) is a PhD student in Research and Development in Education. His thesis topic deals with dual vocational training in vocational and technical institutions in Thailand, and its role in skills and knowledge formation and transmission. He has taken part in CELS-conducted research projects, including the one funded by NRCT (National Research Council of Thailand) on education and poverty.

The Contributors:
Audrey BARON-GUTTY, Chitrlada BURAPHARAT, Kwanchewan BUADAENG, Supat CHUPRADIT, Prasit LEEPREECHA

Follow the links for more details and free download in PDF format.

CELS activities - update

Phasina Tangchuang will present a paper at the annual Council on Thai Studies (COTS) that will be held on October 23-24, 2009 at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb Illinois (USA).

Here are some details:

Globalization and Traditionalism: a Case of Northern Thailand
Phasina Tangchuang, Centre for Education and Labour Studies, Chiang Mai University

The theme of the council this year is: Thailand's Reponse to Globalization: Globalization vs. Traditionalism.

More information and detailed programme can be found here, on the Center for Southeast Asian Studies website.

Blog / CELS researcher

Phasina Tangchuang, researcher at the CELS, has launched his blog. It presents some of the papers he has published so far.

Please visit it at http://phasina-cels.blogspot.com/

This week...

The CELS will be conducting some field work in Uttaradit and Lampang provinces.

It deals with the NRCT project (Education and Poverty) and the CELS-JEAI programme.

Some pictures from the field research (2)

Interview rural area wickerworkers / Ngew Subdistrict, Sakhon Nakhon Province, 2nd June 2009










Interview of a group of farmers producing organic fertilizer for their own farms









At Milk Cow Farm

Some pictures from the field research

Interview of Mathematics Teachers
Thesaban, Sakhon Nakhon, 3rd June 2009







VDO Taping at Sakhon Nakhon 4th June 2009

Planned CELS activities for the following weeks

From 25^th May to 5^th June 2009, Phasina Tangchuang, Ben Kittikhun and Visarut Tangchuang will go to Udorn Thani and Sakon Nakhon provinces to fulfil the JEAI-CELS and NRCT research programmes.

Their research activities during these two weeks will include:

1) Interviewing around 150-200 poor workers, from different occupations in various villages, sub-districts and districts in these 2 provinces, to back up the CELS research programme studying the links between education and poverty.

2) Studying the context of education by focusing on schools. Around 10 teachers from each school (4 schools per province) will be interviewed.

3) Observing mathematics teachers, from different schools, preparing lesson plans (and sharing their experiences) on Multiplication and Division for the 4th grade students. Teachers will be video-recorded when preparing lesson plans; in-depth interviews will be conducted to study their professional and individual backgrounds. The recorded materials will then be used to allow analysis using Transana Programme by researchers from CELS and involved Rajabhat Universities, and also supporting experts from University Lumière-Lyon 2 (France).

From 15^th to 27^th June, the CELS team will carry out the same tasks but in Uttaradit and Lampang provinces.