The Education Ministry is trying to revive the glorious days of the teaching profession when teachers earned respect from society for demonstrating high professional and ethical standards. Back then, top students eagerly opted for teaching jobs and shared their knowledge with the next generation.
Now, however, the profession has plunged into doom and gloom. Young highachievers are not interested in becoming teachers, and parents more often than not, complain about teachers' poor records. People no longer believe teachers can contribute much to the country.
However, this has to change - not just for the sake of the teachers, but for the sake of Thailand.
As the saying goes, teachers mould a nation. They shape the future of children in their class and under their care. It is only with good, respectable and efficient teachers that Thailand can get topquality human resources and fly high.
With that in mind, the Education Ministry is now promising to produce a new generation of teachers with the hope of bringing topgrade people into the profession. It believes that if the national mould is good, the country can move forward fast and impressively.
According to a 2007 report by McKinsey & Company, the best educational services are in Finland, Singapore and South Korea.
In many ways, these three countries are successful - populated with quality citizens and good infrastructure. Therefore, it is undeniable that a nation's success depends very much on its educational system.
Direk Pornsima, who chairs the Teachers' Council of Thailand, said only 10 per cent of the best students were qualified to apply for teaching programmes in Finland and South Korea.
"After the selection process is completed, only about 5 per cent of these students end up in the field," he said, adding that good teachers in Finland and South Korea went further to become expert and master teachers.
Inspired by Finland, the Education Ministry has changed its priorities in educational reform and made teachers the ultimate focus.
To get started, the ministry is spending Bt4 billion on a special project to produce 6,600 newgeneration teachers. Launched last year, the threeyear project is aimed at fourthyear university students with a grade point average (GPA) of 3.00. After completing university, the applicants will undergo a special oneyear teachertraining programme and walk into a government teaching job after graduation.
"We will checke the applicants' grades in regular subjects as well as subjects they are majoring in. The GPA should be at least 3.00 for both levels," Somwang Pitiyanuwat, who leads the selection panel for this project, said.
Somwang said that though this criteria was much lower than required in Finland, his panel was able to recruit a little over 1,000 students last year.
"Most applicants' GPA is not high enough," he lamented.
Still, he hopes the project will be able to attract topgrade students soon given that there's a guaranteed job and successful applicants will know beforehand where they will be working.
Somwang, the secondtop student in Chachoengsao in his youth, pursued the teaching profession and has been working in the educational field since then.
In the next academic year, another project will be up and running to come up with some 30,000 newgeneration teachers. In this project, aspirants will take a fiveyear course at university level to prepare for one of the most important jobs in the country.
By 2015, Thailand should have 36,600 newgeneration teachers in the educational sector, and hopefully they will be able to make a difference soon. Currently, the government has hired about 400,000 teachers nationwide.
The Nation