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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai Education Policy. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Thai Examiner, that is thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: Bhumjaithai and Anutin plan Thailand's education agenda with an emphasis on national pride and ethical, civic virtues." All good things by the way. I like that idea. In any event, quoting further: "In a bold move, Thailand's Bhumjaithai Party shifts focus to national pride in education. However, with dismal PISA scores and debates on conservatism versus progress, the nation stands at a critical point. Experts emphasize urgent reforms for global competitiveness."

Well first of all let's talk about global competitiveness. I think it is pretty safe to say right now, whatever you want to talk about in terms of geopolitics, globalism or maybe I should say globalism 1.0, I think that is behind us now. And this sort of era of needing to always be kind of worried what other countries were doing vis a vis what you are doing in your country, I think we can step back from that a little bit especially here in Thailand and maybe just say to ourselves, "we're Thai, we know how to do things and that's okay. We may not be "globally competitive".  All that really means is what someone else is calling us, whether or not they believe we are competitive. Well we may be running our own race to use sort of a similar terminology. That said, quoting further: "Thailand's economy which is the second biggest in Southeast Asia, has for the last few decades been seen as a laggard with low growth and falling levels of inward investment." Okay, falling levels of inward investment. It might be because the market is saturated; we are sophisticated enough that sort of the low-hanging fruit in terms of international capital looking to come in here, and I am not going to say make the easy money but sort of the low-hanging fruit, the money, helping to build a highway or something like this, that is fairly straight forward or a factory to make things like textiles or something like this. All of this is already set up in Thailand. We already have a sophisticated economy so it might be running laggard a little bit if you will because it has already reached a certain point of sophistication; that would be my only point.

But quoting further: "Unquestionably one of the key reasons for this is a poor and underperforming education system." Now I hear this all the time and again, I won't say that the criticism is entirely unwarranted. However, one thing I think is worth noting, yeah Thais are kind of weak in terms of English language proficiency when you compare them to other jurisdictions around the region. That said, this place was not colonized and therefore Thai is the language of Thailand so if you are looking through the prism, when it comes to education policy, if you are looking through the prism of English language proficiency, that may not be the way to look at things and get a perfectly clear view of how things are working. I will give one example. A far wiser man, a true mentor to me, wiser man than myself once said when talking about having lawyers in a law firm, Thai lawyers specifically, he said a lot of people run out there when they are hiring, if they are hiring a Thai lawyer, bringing a Thai lawyer into a law firm, they run out there and really look hard at English proficiency but that isn't what they should be looking at. They should be looking at ‘are they proficient at what they do? Which is Thai Law’. You are in Thailand; you would want a competent Thai lawyer. Whether or not they can speak English is kind of a little bit irrelevant; it's only relevant to the foreigner if anything, not to the task at hand, if you look at it that way. So again, while I think that there are some criticisms that can be levelled against the Education System here in Thailand, I think it's also worth stepping back and looking at things and saying "hey if we are only going to look at this through the lens of English language proficiency, we might not be getting a fully clear picture of how things actually work as a practical matter here in the Kingdom on a day-to-day basis. 

Quoting further: "That was confirmed in November by disastrous findings from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Well first of all OECD I believe is the brilliant group that came up with the "harmonization" of "global taxation" and all these other great ideas, so let's maybe take what they are saying with a grain of salt or at least consider the source. Quoting further: "worldwide survey where Thailand polled 101 out of 113 countries surveyed." Again, love to know how they surveyed and I would love to know in what language; I would love to know that. Quoting further: "In response, a new Bhumjaithai Thai Party Human Resource Policy was launched by Deputy Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul and Minister of Education Police General Permpoon Chidchob on November 17th. The initiative prioritizes the cultivation of traditional values and pride in the nation over all other considerations." Now quoting further: "In the competitive world of global education, as quote, I shouldn't say quote; I quoted this in the title; this is the point I wanted to make: "As International Investment funds seek the brightest talent, the recent revelations from international assessment of Thailand are not good." 

Again, if you look at it purely from a foreigner's perspective, that may be true or purely through the prism possibly of English language proficiency. I would argue these so-called International Investment funds - by the way is that a euphemism for the banking sector; are these sort of the international multi-jurisdictional corporate crew and there is nothing wrong with those folks, I am asking the question who are we talking about here - but again those folks may be looking at Thailand differently and they may be looking at Thailand in my opinion, without fully seeing how things really work here especially if you are looking through the prism of some foreign language. So again I am not going to go out here and say, Thailand's education could always improve; it is always a good idea to get people more educated, there is no doubt about that. That said, I really again this seems to be one of these instances of foreigners looking at Thailand and constantly criticizing and failing first of all to look at the nuanced aspects of the issue and also not really looking at the situation for what it is because look what may work for Thailand's Education Policy may not be "globally competitive".