The latest issue of The Economist attempts to explain why Thailand has failed to progress on education, and why Yingluck's tablets are not going to solve the problem.
Given my first-hand experience volunteering in Thailand's elementary school this spring, I have to agree with The Economist. Let's make it clear: I personally have no doubt in the revolutionary power of tablets in classrooms. It is handy, eye-catching, interactive and extremely educational if you use it right. But the inconvenient truth is, the country's education is failing because of poor management. Teachers and school administrators are not paid on results, and each individual school runs itself like a family business. Of course the blame can climb all the way to the very top of its system: education policy-makers and, ultimately, the government.
Had I decided to go there a year later, we might be playing with Ms. Yingluck's tablets instead of my own. But how much difference does it make?
Here I want to raise a deeper and perhaps less correct explanation why Thailand has difficulties turning extra resource into better academic performance: the Thai culture and social formation. To say the least, Thai society is more relaxed than ambitious. Remember, the country's economy has been tourism-driven for decades. Smiles and hospitality earn you money; textbooks and literacy don't. This being part of the people's DNA, you can hardly believe the students themselves are motivated to excel at school, if their parents don't even consider academic excellence as a gateway to well-being.
When I was there as a volunteer English teacher, I saw as many smart kids as anywhere else. But hardly could I call them hard-working and dream-bearing ones. The Thai people are naturally not fans of competition. This is especially true if you compare them to their Southeast-Asian neighbors.
So, if power and wealth are given by one's last name, the King, and the Buddha, what's it have to do with my studying hard?
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