Following a serious tug of war among educational experts, top executives at the Educational Council have finally killed an ambitious plan to establish the National Institute of Education (NIE).
The question now is "How is the country going to improve the quality of its teachers?"
The NIE had earlier been touted as a key agency to spearhead the country's upcoming reform and to comprehensively boost the quality of teachers in a conclusive way.
It is common wisdom that the country will need good and capable teachers to get competent graduates.
However, the planned establishment of the NIE attracted huge criticism because the NIE was supposed to do what some other agencies are now doing, and to have power over institutes that train teachers.
The NIE, if established, would cost Bt1.8 billion for its office alone.
"Most board members think we should just establish a national education commission," Education Minister Jurin Laksanawisit said after a meeting of the Educational Council board last Thursday.
The board convened its meeting solely to discuss whether the NIE should really be established.
"We'll talk about the duty and mandate of the national education commission later," Jurin said.
Based on a draft plan prepared by the Office of the Educational Council, the NIE shall formulate policies for the training/development of teachers. It shall also certify and support teachertraining institutes.
Moreover, it shall study and develop the education system and the training/development of teachers. As part of its founding goals, the NIE was also supposed to train teachers, speakers and educational leaders in response to the needs of teachertraining institutes.
The draft plan states that the NIE shall provide measures to attract good and capable people to the teaching profession as well, and that the NIE shall establish and manage funds for the development of teachers/lecturers and educational personnel.
Last but not least, the NIE shall also advise the education minŽister about the development and use of teachers, lecturers and educational personnel.
If the NIE had been set up a long time ago, it could have become a pillar of Thailand's educational system, which would have been much better off.
However, its introduction now may pose many problems.
To many critics, the NIE's roles would clearly overlap with those of several existing agencies such as the Teacher Council of Thailand, the National Institute for Development of Teachers, Faculty Staffs and Educational Personnel and at least 92 other institutes.
"Clearly, the NIE will do what the faculties of education at nearly 100 highereducational institutes are now doing when it comes to the development of teachers," National Thai Teachers' Union chairman Perm Luangkaew said.
Sumet Yamnoon, secretarygeneral at the Office of Higher Education Commission (Ohec), also suggested that current universities could step in to help the Office of Basic Education Commission (Obec) improve the quality of some 400,000 teachers under Obec without the need of the NIE.
"After testing the knowledge of teachers, we can design their training courses," Sumet said, after expressing a stance against having the NIE as a "big brother" agency with comprehensive services.
The Teachers' Council of Thailand is now responsible for maintaining professional standards of teachers and educational personnel across the country.
If the NIE is established, its function could become redundant in many ways.
According to Jurin, the board of the Educational Council has now agreed that it is better to make optimum use of existing agencies for the development of teachers and improving the quality of teacherproducing institutes.
"Besides, we have already assigned several panels to study how best to improve the quality of teachers," Jurin added.
One of them, headed by forŽmer deputy education minister Varakorn Samakoses, is expected to conclude soon on a plan to develop teachers over the next 10 years.
Currently, 92 private and state institutes have groomed their students for the teaching profession.
"We believe that if these institutes respond to the plan, everything should go well. In addition, we will soon have the Thai Qualification Framework (TQF) from Ohec to guide how the development of teachers should improve," Jurin said.
He added that as all highereducational institutes would have to proceed in line with the TQF, the quality of teachers should then be of good standard.
Jurin said the Teachers' Council of Thailand would also be nudged to play a more active role in supervising teachers' behaviour and in punishing the unethical ones.
However, the ambitious projections by Jurin will hardly turn into reality because without the NIE, there will be no organisation fully devoted to the development/training of teaching staff in the country. Without the NIE, there will be no big change to guarantee that the quality of teachers will really improve. Neither will there be a guarantee that the upcoming education reform will make a difference.
Dr Somwang Pitiyanuwat, who worked on the plan to set up the NIE, said the NIE in fact could be a solution to many problems about the quality of teachers in Thailand.
Currently, all highereducaŽtional institutes were seen as paying not much attention to their faculty of education because they had to handle so many faculties and so many fields of programmes. In the past, there were colleges that focused on the development of teachers only, but there is none these days.