After talking to Amy Campbell about the issues of equity and excellence in education in Thailand, I have found out many interesting things. First of all, due to issues of poverty in certain areas in Thailand, many children are not able to attend schools. If these children are lucky enough to have the opportunity to attend the schools, they usually only do so until the age of 12 because they are needed to work in the rice fields with their families. Some children live in a type of boarding school where the parents drop them off and return to pick them up at the end of the 9 months. There is not any type of preschool program for younger children, but they have housed some of the younger siblings in desperate situation. The parents that cannot afford to pay for their schooling with money will pay with bags of rice. Most children however, do not finish school and go on to college but return to their families farms where they continue to work in the fields.
Teachers in Thailand are supposed to have a teaching certificate with a bachelor’s degree. However, she said that there are circumstances where the teachers do not have a teaching certificate or a degree, but because of the poor situations that the children live in, it is not pushed. In certain areas, since the parents are not able to pay for the schooling, the teachers that they are able to hire, do not have degrees in education and are hired with a much lower income.
Amy:
ReplyDeleteThis post was very interesting! I can remember stories from my dad about growing up in the rice fields of Louisiana, and being one of the lucky few that had the chance to attend school. We never really understand other countries issues and struggles until we research and learn from our own.
Fran Logan