Clear guidelines have yet to take shape for the second phase of national educational reform, which was supposed to kick off last year.
Thus, it has become vital now that people on the top take action to shape solid, tangible policies to consolidate efforts by all relevant parties and push them forward in the same direction.
The second round of educational reform will only be successful with effective policies, analysts say.
"It takes consistent policies to bring about a success," Rangsan Maneelek, director of the Office of Basic Education Commission's Bureau of Policy and Planning, said at a recent seminar on the guidelines for educational reform.
He said if policymakers believed that decentralisation was the future of the country's educational sector, they must stick with it to the end.
Chulalongkorn University (CU) lecturer Sompong Jitradab Angsuwathin said policymakers would need to trust teachers' abilities. "You must trust that the teachers can efficiently run their schools," he said at the same seminar.
To him, the education sector should start embracing a bottom-to-top paradigm instead of holding on to the top-down style.
"The educational sector has been rather bad throughout the past three decades. So, it's clear we need to change," Sompong noted.
Education Council board member Suwat Ngerncham said large schools like Suankularb Wittayalai should be turned into legal entities to give them free rein in management.
"For smaller schools, we may merge some of them so that they can get stronger and provide greater educational services," he suggested.
Prapapat Niyom, who founded the Roong Aroon School as an alternative for children, said as long as schools were strictly controlled, they would not be able to initiate anything based on children's needs.
"This is because they will have to keep responding to policies of people at the top level all the time," she said.
Her Roong Aroon School is based on Lord Buddha's teachings and offers a holistic approach in teaching students.
"Something big can start from small steps. School executives should be allowed to push for better changes at their institutes first," Prapapat said.
Ticha na Nakorn, who heads the Kanchanaphisek Home for young delinquents, called for a human touch in the reforms.
She said relevant authorities should not forget to think about children who are different from what society expects of them.
"If you have time, please visit the Kanchanaphisek Home and see why some children have failed in their lives," she said. "If you know the root causes and work to solve them, you will find solutions for the country."
Speaking at the same seminar, former education minister Dr Wichai Tansiri said authorities should use "stick-and-carrot" measures to drive up the quality of schools and better grooming of children.
"If any school fails to pass a prescribed set of standards, its executives should be removed or transferred. But if the school does well in assessments, its executives should enjoy some forms of reward," he said.
Sompong and former CU president Khunying Suchada Kiranandana suggested that the Education Ministry try to attract quality people to teaching by offering attractive pay. Currently, many highly capable people are reluctant to take up teaching jobs because the starting salary is only Bt7,000 to Bt8,000 a month.
Suchada and Sompong believed the starting salary should be around Bt15,000 to Bt20,000.
"Placing teachers at schools close to their home is also a good motivation," Sompong said.
While many suggestions are worth considering, before officials start shaping state policies, they should also listen to the needs of the private sector.
Sompong Nakornsri, senior vice chairman of the Federation of Thai Industries, showed up at the education seminar to explain how hard it is for entrepreneurs to find workers with proper qualifications.
"Thailand is the only country that allows its workers to work as mechanics/technicians without issuing certificates to guarantee their skills," he said.
Vocational students who had already finished education should be trained theoretically and practically for 30 days before they can obtain certificates.
"Other countries have such processes in place. It's a means to guarantee that entrepreneurs get qualified technicians and mechanics."
Sompong also called for relevant agencies to have a clear goal about how to produce graduates in response to labour market needs.
Without integrated efforts to solve the problem, Thailand would continue to lack workers for some fields and have too many students for the limited jobs in others.
Several academics and senior education officials admitted at a recent meeting some universities were competing to recruit more students and university councils decided to open new programmes regardless of labour needs. In the end, graduates from some fields would find it hard to get work.
It was agreed at the meeting that this problem needed to be addressed. The academics want the Education Ministry to co-ordinate with them and provide them with updated workforce demands. They said measures should also be put in place to ensure the number of students recruited to each field of study suits demands of the labour market.
Office for National Education Standards and Quality Assessment (Onesqa) former director Somwang Pitiyanuwat believed Onesqa could play a role in this.
"The university councils don't know which fields lack adequate workers, so they should be told. And Onesqa should assess the university councils' work, as they are policy-driven organisations of each university," he said.
Relevant agencies also need to start developing maps to identify which batches of schools need to be improved first, and which ones should come next.
After choosing which schools need improvement, they also need to identify who should oversee the improvement process. Quality people need to handle these jobs. Thousands of small schools across the country need to lift standards. If capable people are appointed to oversee such tasks, these schools will have a good chance to improve quickly, especially if national officials agree to relegate power and allocate sufficient resources to the heads of small schools too.
But such implementation must be done consistently to perpetuate sustainable, satisfactory results.
Likewise, when the Education Ministry sets a goal of building a public library for every tambon, it should prepare consistent plans to ensure they can remain in service in the long run. If libraries are built and filled with books just once, they will soon deteriorate, especially if there is no librarian to serve users or care for books on shelves; people will stop coming in.
In the same way, if the government wants to seriously encourage reading, it must develop a good plan. Announcing the promotion of reading as a national agenda alone does not count; and holding book fairs is just a small effort.
Efforts has to come from other fronts too. Has the government done enough to engage families, schools and communities with activities to encourage reading?
We don't think so. We believe relevant authorities and the private sector can work more efficiently to achieve this goal and the many other goals they have set for the country's education.
What the country badly needs now are clear-cut policies and plans to get implementation moving.
