Learning crisis
Re: "Future will be decided in classrooms", & "Thailand stalls as Vietnam surges", (BP, Jan 26).
Jump-start your children's education next month. Vote for the party which you think will best prepare your offspring to not only survive but thrive as adults. As things are now, almost 64.7% of Thais aged 15-65 can barely understand short texts like "Take one tablet daily after dinner until the medicine is gone." And 74.1% of them cannot perform simple tasks, such as finding prices while shopping online. Moreover, 30.3% of them do not show tendencies to take social initiatives or be enthusiastic, curious, and imaginative. With a workforce like that, why would even Thai investors want to invest here?
For starters, does your favoured political party realise that "Education is the lighting of a fire, not the filling of a pail" (Plutarch)? If they have a dinosaur mentality, don't expect them to help your children with AI. Has your party designated the MOE as an "A"-level ministry, and earmarked the party's best and brightest for it? Will your party work with other parties to develop a non-partisan, long-term commitment to education reform that will survive political change -- or will it just push "here today, gone tomorrow" programmes, like tablets? Will it invest heavily in teacher training, reduce their paperwork, and reward them for fostering their students' imagination and curiosity? What will your party do to make schools into places where students are eager to learn and question? Will your party pour brainpower and finances into empowering lower-income students and close our rich-poor gulf?
If your party can't convince you that they mean business along the above lines, why are you letting them starve your children's brains? Either kick them awake or vote for a party that puts your children's welfare ahead of their own.
