The proposal by the Science and Technology Ministry to increase the budget allocation to science and technology to at least 1 per cent of GDP is welcome news.

But this is a cautious welcome. From the figures given, this would mean a fourfold increase in the spending on science and technology. If that money is just thrown at science and technology without careful planning, it could be wasted. Past Thai governments seem to have thought that simply spending money is a magic wand which will solve everything.

One glaring example was the Thaksin government's plan to give every schoolchild a computer, with no thought as to what they would use them for, who would teach them how to use them, who would pay for software or who would maintain the machines.

National Nanotechnology Centre deputy director Dr Teerachai Pornsinsirirak is quoted in the report as saying: "Research, education and innovation are key elements to competitiveness." But in the past the Thai education system has worked against innovation and research. Teaching children to accept and memorise what the teacher says is the antithesis of what is needed in research and innovation.

For the long-term improvement of research in science and technology, some of that 1 per cent of GDP should be spent on retraining the teacher workforce to encourage children to ask questions and on how to guide them to find the answers. This would include Internet searches and doing experiments for themselves.

Just giving the money to postgraduate-level research will waste much of it unless those "researchers" have been trained to take a questioning and innovative approach to their work.

It is argued that providing facilities for students to do experiments is expensive, but it need not be, particularly at the mid-secondary level and below.

As I was taught some 30 years ago in an East African context, there are a lot of things in scrap yards and even thrown out in the dustbins that could be used for experimenting on some basic scientific phenomena. Resourceful teachers in rural areas could turn their schools and even their whole village into a vast laboratory for their students with the cooperation of the local community.

This is another aspect of the change in approach that is needed in education. Teachers should be encouraged to use techniques and materials that are readily available in their local communities and not have to wait for "the" right way to teach a topic from Bangkok. Indeed they should be encouraged to pass on their experiences of what worked and what did not work for them to the regional and higher levels of the education system.

Money spent on developing this different approach to education would be a better long-term approach than throwing large sums of money at people who have not been adequately trained for the innovative, research role.

Gareth Clayton

Bangkok

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Thailand is hardly in the same league as the Congo

 Re: "Thailand's rating alongside Congo an effect of junta's rule", Letters, January 20.

I agree that the current Thai political scene is hardly ideal, but to put us in the same league as Congo and Haiti is too extreme. We may have had 17 prior coups in our 70-odd years of constitutional monarchy, but in all cases power eventually reverted back to the people.

In the "2007 Index of Economic Freedom", based on research by the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal, Thailand was ranked 50th out of 161 nations and was labelled as having a moderately free economy. Haiti was ranked 135th, Burma 153rd, and Congo was not ranked, just like Iraq. These countries were labelled as either "mostly unfree" or "repressed". Regionally, we were ranked ninth most free out of 30 countries.

Norway recently voted our country the best place to visit. Bangkok was also voted the second best city to visit by readers of an American travel magazine in 2005. Were these highlighted in the Thai press? Hardly! Only opinions about Thailand going to the dogs were well publicised.

Songdej Praditsmanont

Bangkok

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Coup leaders are furthering their own 'vested interests'

 Re: "The Thaksin offensive still has ample ammunition for battle", Opinion, January 19.

The coup was not launched "reluctantly". It was planned over several months. The coup-planners seized power just for one reason: to further their vested interests, which has already clearly been shown by the 35-per-cent increase in military spending.

Coups don't belong in the civilised world. Thaksin Shinawatra has every right to visit any country and give his views. The newly created rift with Singapore could be costly for Thailand. It has no cost for Singapore. Singapore plays in the highest division, and Thailand is next to the lowest and soon may fall even lower to the group comprising Iran, North Korea and Burma.

Neutral Observer

Bangkok

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Thaksin is only in search of language crash course

 It has now become transparent that the Council for National Security and Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont are running scared of the repercussions once they leave office, and that is the reason the country is aimlessly idling in neutral. So much for moral rectitude.

After visiting CNN's website and reading the transcript of Thaksin's interview with Dan Rivers, it became abundantly clear as to his real objective in returning to Chiang Mai: to attend a crash course with Berlitz.

"Because everyone knows who is, who am I. I come from election...

"But I trying to get into the television station but it's very difficult... but you know, which I, it's a rumours at that time, but I don't believe that this can happen...

"It's very surprise because you know, but anyway 70 years in Thailand ...

"Six years you serve the countries ... so it's, it's time for me to go back as a private citizen. And contribute to the Thai society outside political arena."

Usually, a publication uses square brackets for the committing of such gross grammatical imperfections. Not so CNN.

Sucatash

Bangkok

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Purachai should take stock of himself before lecturing others

 I can't believe that the Thai media are taking Purachai Piumsomboon seriously again. He has a lot of nerve to lecture the people about democracy when he was Thaksin's right-hand man for so many years.

Purachai most likely knows about the corruption committed by the Thaksinistas and how they did it, yet he demands that the military show receipts in their prosecution of Thaksin and his former government. What a hypocrite!

If anybody knows where the bodies are buried from the early years of the Thaksin regime, it has to be Purachai, who was the chief civilian law-enforcement officer in the land. Quite frankly, I think the auditor-general should be deposing Purachai under oath about all the corruption and malfeasance that was happening under his nose during his tenure at the Interior and Justice departments.

Also, isn't Purachai the guy who presided over a police department that was responsible for thousands of extrajudicial killings during his beloved Social Order Campaign? Wasn't this the guy who was harassing and persecuting the working classes at entertainment venues without warrants or probable cause? Wasn't this the guy who turned a blind eye when the Thaksinistas were embezzling billions of baht from the state from policy corruption, yet vigorously pursued and jailed poor people for carrying a couple of tablets of ya ba or having a drink after midnight?

What is Purachai's public record exactly? He went after the poorest, most defenceless members of society and let the rich do whatever they wanted. And this guy calls himself a democrat? He must have taken political theory lessons from Thaksin Shinawatra.

And when things got too hot for sanctimonious Purachai in the Thai Rak Thai hierarchy, he ran away to New Zealand instead of fighting for democracy in his party and his country. Perhaps if some of the more honest and least corrupted members of Thai Rak Thai had stood up to Thaksin, instead of selling out or running away to their expensive second homes in the West, there might have never been a coup.

Before Purachai lectures anybody in Thailand about democracy, he had better look in the mirror and lecture himself first. And, by the way, for a retired policeman/bureaucrat he seems unusually wealthy. After all, New Zealand is an expensive country to live in when one is running away from his democratic responsibilities.

Brad Polisuk

Bangkok

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No power source is all clean, so let's just consume less

 Dam reservoirs that produce power are not non-polluting as commonly thought. Scientific measurements at the outflows of dams indicate that prodigious amounts of greenhouse gases are released. Apparently the decaying organic matter within the reservoir releases large amounts of greenhouse gases, particularly when shot out from the dam, much like a can of soda fizzes when opened. Anyone interested in details can check out www.irn.org/programs/greenhouse.

Also on the subject of power generation, an article in the December 2006 edition of Discover magazine indicates that there is a clean way to generate power from coal. The drawback is the high construction cost of such a "FutureGen" plant, which first renders coal into gas. However, the technology exists and has been proven to emit a barely discernible amount of contaminants from its chimney: indeed it barely emits a heat plume.

But even better than low-impact energy generation is the lofty goal of true energy efficiency, or simply tailoring our lives to use less of the stuff.

Ken Albertsen

Chiang Rai

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