Published on November 06, 2005

Teachers threaten dramatic action if demands not met. Teachers from across the country yesterday threatened to spill their own blood when they gather in Bangkok tomorrow to protest against the planned hand-over of schools run by the Education Ministry to local governments.

A total of 17,500 teachers – about 100 from each of the 175 areas into which the ministry divides the country for administrative purposes – will gather at the Royal Plaza at 7.30am, said Thanarat Somkhanay, spokesman of the Network of Teachers against the Transfer of Government Schools to Local Administrative Organisations.

The demonstrators will all dress in yellow – the designated colour of the Chakri Dynasty – to show their loyalty to His Majesty the King. From the Royal Plaza they plan to march to Government House to demand that the prime minister promise to scrap the scheme.

Thanarat was speaking at a seminar held at the Kurusapa Business Organisation head office with more than 1,000 teachers in attendance. They voiced total opposition to the plan to bring more than half a million teachers under the supervision of provincial administrative organisations (PAOs) or tambon administrative organisations (TAOs).

Some teachers said they would cut their arms and use the blood to write protest signs if their wishes were ignored.

Three network members shaved their heads after the session to show their disapproval. Thawee Phimkhan, one of the three, said he did not want be a subordinate to any local body that was not proficient in administering an education system.

Senator Khampan Pongpan, chairman of the network, said the education system would completely break down if teachers were made to answer to PAOs and TAOs, which are under the power of local politicians who themselves are prone to corruption and underworld influence.

Citing an opinion survey conducted by the Senate Committee on Education, Religion, Arts and Culture, Khampan said 90 per cent of the 300,000 teachers attached to the 175 chapters and 72 per cent of three million parents had all disagreed with the transfer.

A new department under the prime minister’s office called the Decentralisation to Local Government Organisation Committee (DLOC) is pushing for the reassignment of schools and government officials to local administrations under Article 43 of the Constitution.

Khampan accused the DLOC of confusing the word “decentralisation”, as stated in the Constitution, with “transfer”, saying the charter aimed at devolving power to provide education to individual schools in local areas, not at granting the power to supervise those schools to local administrative bodies.

Senator Wiboon Shamshuen, chairman of the Senate panel that organised yesterday’s seminar, said educators and their sympathisers could petition the Administrative Court or even abort the transfer plan by securing 50,000 signatures to amend an organic law that authorises the DLOC to implement the plan.

Dej Khongbun, a member of a committee for career development for teachers in the Northeast, said the nationwide branches of the committee would not vote for the ruling Thai Rak Thai Party in the next general election if its leader, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, failed to give them his promise tomorrow.

Thammarat Kitchalong

The Nation

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