5 บทเรียน สำหรับผู้จัดทำนโยบายด้านการศึกษา
Five lessons for education policymakers
1. การพัฒนาการศึกษาไม่ใช่ฝันลม ๆ แล้ง ๆ แล้วจะสำเร็จ ต้องใช้เงินลงทุน เชื่อมโยง และต่อเนื่อง จึงจะได้ผล 1. There are no magic bullets: The small number of correlations found in the study shows the poverty of simplistic solutions. Throwing money at education by itself rarely produces results, and individual changes to education systems, however sensible, rarely do much on their own. Education requires long-term, coherent and focused system-wide attention to achieve improvement.
2. ถ้าได้ครูดี ผลคือนักเรียนดี จึงต้องรักษาครู และพัฒนาให้เป็นครูมืออาชีพ ไม่ใช่มุ่งเพิ่มเทคนิค หรือเพิ่มเครื่องมือ 2. Respect teachers: Good teachers are essential to high-quality education. Finding and retaining them is not necessarily a question of high pay. Instead, teachers need to be treated as the valuable professionals they are, not as technicians in a huge, educational machine.
3. มีวัฒนธรรมเชิงลบบางเรื่องที่ต้องเปลี่ยน แล้วสนับสนุนวัฒนธรรมเชิงบวกที่มีผลต่อการศึกษา 3. Culture can be changed: The cultural assumptions and values surrounding an education system do more to support or undermine it than the system can do on its own. Using the positive elements of this culture and, where necessary, seeking to change the negative ones, are important to promoting successful outcomes.
4. พ่อแม่ต้องเข้าใจและร่วมกันพัฒนาการศึกษาของเด็ก 4. Parents are neither impediments (ผลักดัน) to nor saviours (ผู้ไถ่บาป) of education: Parents want their children to have a good education; pressure from them for change should not be seen as a sign of hostility but as an indication of something possibly amiss in provision. On the other hand, parental input and choice do not constitute a panacea. Education systems should strive to keep parents informed and work with them.
5. การศึกษาคือการเติมเต็มทักษะในปัจจุบัน เพื่อนำไปใช้ในอนาคต 5. Educate for the future, not just the present: Many of today’s job titles, and the skills needed to fill them, simply did not exist 20 years ago. Education systems need to consider what skills today’s students will need in future and teach accordingly.
About 10,000 students attend a tutorial at a shopping mall in Bangkok in preparation for entrance exams to study medicine at an university. (Photo by Apichit Jinakul)
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Thailand scores badly in education assessment ranking
Thailand’s education system is ranked 37th out of 40 countries assessed in latest global index ranking published by British education and publishing group Pearson Plc.
Finland took first place with a score of 1.26 points, followed by South Korea and Hong-Kong. Following them are two other Asian countries: Japan and Singapore.
Thailand scored badly, with 1.46, and had only three countries below it in the ranking.
The index ranking is based on cognitive skills – test scores in reading, writing, and mathematics – and educational attainment – literacy and graduation rate – accumulated from 40 developed countries.
Sir Michael Barber, Pearson’s chief education adviser, said successful countries gave their educators a high status and have a culture that is supportive of education.
Thai netizens posted messages on various webboards on Wednesday, mostly criticising the Thai education system.
“It’s because of the educators,” said a postor in posttoday.com.
“I feel that education does not account to how successful you are in the real world,” said a comment in pantip.com. “These highly educated people have the knowledge but can’t perform.”
Another netizen suggested that Thailand should improve the social belief in education, spend more money to improve the quality of teachers and school autonomy to climb up the ranking.
“The quality of some private universities is really worrying. The quality of graduates with a bachelor’s degree here is lower than high school graduates in other countries,” one netizen said. “If you pay all the tuition fees here, you’ll definitely graduate.”
