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The report said that Thai students ranked No 29, scoring 441 points, below the average international score of 500. The top five students are from Asia. They are Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong. Thai students ranked 20th in terms of science, equivalent to Malaysia. The top five students in science are from Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and the UK.

After this report was publicised, the responsible persons felt very nervous about it. There were three issues: where to start fixing the problem, the chronic educational problem and whether there are solutions to this problem.

Although a few Thai students won some international awards in maths, the rest of them failed to compete with the others. This is despite the fact that Thai schools were the second in the world in terms of allocating school hours for maths and science classes. In short, the students didn't spend quality time in class.

It can be assumed that there were not enough number of teachers or the teachers were not of high competence or lacked the required equipment to teach students. The students meanwhile didn't focus on the subject or lacked basic knowledge. More important than that, the problem reflected the lack of support from the government and the politicians who failed to spell out a clear policy on how to promote educational reform.

In fact, Thai students did not fail to compete in maths and science only. Overall, Thai students failed to adapt their knowledge or become critical. Thai youngsters like to spend time on fashion or luxury gadgets. This is quite a worrisome issue because they are the future of the country.

But it would be wrong to blame it all on students and teachers alone. The decision-makers should be blamed for failing to outline a clear educational policy to achieve the reform.