Jintana Maensurin (right),
Pattaya’s Education Department Director.
Warunya Thongrod
Pattaya education officials are promising more teacher training
and earlier student testing as the city scrambles to join Thailand’s
promised “revolution” in education to reverse sliding standardized test
scores.
At a Nov. 27 meeting with teachers and administrators from all 11 public
schools, Education Department Director Jintana Maensurin unveiled a new
“Literacy Guarantee” program to boost scores in reading and writing.
As part of the campaign, students will now be subjected to preliminary
testing three months before Thailand’s Ordinary National Education Test
for third and sixth graders. After scores are evaluated, additional
teacher training, where needed, will begin in June.
“In the past, schools have tried several methods to reduce the number of
students who cannot read and write by dividing them into special classes
that focused on spelling, reading in groups and presentation of
materials to memorize,” Jintana said. However, she said, that has not
helped, as Pattaya students fell below the already poor national O-Net
average scores every year.
Out of full scores of 100, the average score for Thai language fell in
2012 from 42.61 to 41.88. Mathayom 6 students scored less than half of
the possible total in all main subjects. In Pattaya, between 6 and 12
percent of third- and sixth-grade students failed the test altogether.
In September, the World Economic Forum reported that
Thailand’s primary and secondary education system has slipped to 78th
out of 144 nations globally - and last among eight ASEAN countries - in
quality of education. In specific areas, the results were even worse.
The kingdom ranks 101st in primary enrollment, 94th in secondary
enrollment, 86th in the quality of its primary education, and 80th in
the quality of its math and science education.
The damning report sent shockwaves through the country’s educational
system, with Education Minister Chaturon Chaisaeng calling for a
“revolution” that would deliver demonstrable results by 2015.
The Pattaya “Literacy Guarantee” campaign aims to bring Pattaya in line
with national goals. In the first teaching session, Asst. Prof. Siwakan
Pathumsut began discussion of guidelines to solve literacy issues,
suggesting four new levels of teaching steps to be implemented in city
schools.
Jintana said numerous factors are hindering education in Pattaya,
ranging from student disinterest to learning impediments to home
environment and teacher scarcity. The education minister conspicuously
failed to assign any blame to teachers, whose measured performance has
slid steadily even as their salaries have risen.
Thailand spends more of its gross domestic product on
education - 19.1 percent in 2012 - than most of its ASEAN rivals. But
the WEF noted in its report that simply throwing money at educational
problems - such as Thailand’s populist pledge to supply tablet computers
to all students - isn’t the answer.
Results from the 2009 Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development’s Programme for International Students Assessment test saw
Thai students average 421 in reading literacy, compared with an
OECD-country average of 493. The 2012 results were scheduled for release
Dec. 3, but education officials already have said they expected them to
be “unsatisfactory.”
Other organizations show the same. Thailand dropped from 46th in 2007 to
51st out of 57 countries in 2011 in an education-proficiency assessment
by the International Institute for Management Development. In 2011, the
Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study had Thais ranked
28th in math and 25th in science out of 45 countries.
Jintana pledged that Pattaya will not sit idly by and will continue to
try and stamp out illiteracy.
