SURIN: “ENGLISH IS KEY TO THAILAND’S EDUCATION WOES” English could be a golden key to help improve Thailand’s serious educational problems, said Surin Pitsuwan, a former Secretary-General of ASEAN. In response to the latest World Economic Forum’s report on global competitiveness, Dr. Surin said: “We must pay attention to the content of the WEF’s findings. Our standing is getting worse. We have seen Thailand’s scores sliding down the scales in all categories survey after survey, year after year. This is a serious matter that calls for a national strategy to reverse the trend.” WEF released a survey that describes Thailand’s quality of higher education as “abnormally low” in comparison to other ASEAN Member States. Dr. Surin pointed out that Thai education has been in a crisis state for quite some times now and efforts to bring about reforms since 2542 B.E. have not borne fruits due to political interference and bureaucratic resistance. “We talk a lot about teaching our students to be critical, to think independently and to solve problems, not us rote learning and memorization. But we are getting no where.” “English could be an answer to our educational malaise. With a higher proficiency in English, Thai students can change the dynamics of the classroom. They will have access to more information before going to classes, forcing teachers to be better prepared and turning traditional lecture rooms into seminars where active exchanges can take place,” Dr. Surin said. He observed that in the current state of Thai education, teachers have little motivation to prepare their lessons, students have no tool to access to information relevant to their courses due to their universally low proficiency of English. Dr. Surin suggested that English must be an urgent national agenda. He said a high percentage of Thai students, even at secondary school level, already carried smart phones. “But they are IT-savy only for digital games. And not to access to useful information for learning and intellectual growth.” The former ASEAN Secretary-General pointed out that according to the ASEAN Charter, English is “the working language of ASEAN.” All ASEAN business is conducted in English. But Thai youth are lacking behind in this increasing important tool of communication in ASEAN. He pointed out the fact that in 2012, among 54 countries surveyed for English proficiency, Thailand ranked 53, only ahead of Libya. “That is a dismal state of affair to be in, when we know well that export growth, GDP expansion and even per capita income increase have direct correlation with English proficiency.” “I insist,” said Dr. Surin, “that with a higher proficiency in English today, Thailand’s competitiveness will increase many times over tomorrow.” _________________ For Further information, contact s.pitsuwan@gmail Or nan_ir57@hotmail พิมพ์เผยแพร่โดย สมเกียรติ อ่อนวิมล 2 กันยายน 2556 Reference: WEF Global Competitiveness Report 2013-2014 www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GlobalCompetitivenessReport_2013-14.pdf
Posted on: Mon, 09 Sep 2013 08:18:37 +0000
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