South schools to go multilingual
Some schools in the three southernmost provinces will soon begin using both Malay and Thai languages in their curriculum, caretaker Education Minister Chaturon Chaisang said yesterday.
A first for the Kingdom, the government is currently deciding in which 12 schools to introduce the multilingual courses. They will be in both urban and remote regions. Chaturon said the idea behind the scheme was to instil a sense of confidence among the youngsters by using a language with which they feel comfortable. The ministry is hoping to strengthen relations with the families of local residents by incorporating the Malay language in public schools. The minister said about 100 primary and 40 secondary schools had said they were interested in using the bilingual system. About 80 per cent of the residents in the region are Muslims of Malay ethnicity. The region, Thailand's least developed, has been hit with a spate of separatist violence in the past two years that has so far claimed more than 1,200 lives.
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