I’m not surprised the Ministry of Education found that out of 43,000 English teachers, only six were fluent in English (“Ministry aims to cut foreign English tutors”, BP, Nov 13).
If we are finally getting serious about improving the English competency of our students, I suggest that we:
(a) make remedial classes available for teachers nationwide, perhaps using distance learning, to bring them up to par within, say, five years;
(b) evaluate and promote strictly based on merit, especially competence in teaching English as a second language; and
(c) require all Thai ESL teachers to sit the TOEFL exam annually, with average scores of ESL teachers in each school to be posted on the internet.
Using the TOEFL as our standard will prevent the ministry from setting a deliberately easy exam to save face - but for the first year, we could set the bar at say, 300 points, increasing it to 400 for year 2 and 500 for year 3 - still not enough to be considered for graduate programmes at many better American universities.
Making average scores public will enable parents to track the progress of each school, so they can see what they are paying for.
Burin Kantabutra
Never-ending journey
For more than two decades, the Standard Chartered Bangkok Marathon has been one of the premier events in the country for local and international runners.
It’s unfortunate then that the 28th edition of the race was deeply flawed by insufficient course marshals, lighting and signage. The result was that many runners who registered for the 21-kilometre half-marathon ended up doing 5-6 more kilometres extra to return to the starting point.
Imagine the dismay felt by hundreds of runners, many of whom have been training months for this event, to discover that they have completed their target distance not at the finish line, but instead at the Royal Plaza, with more running required to complete the event.
Amazing Field, the organiser of the Bangkok Marathon, owes Sunday’s runners an explanation, and apology and perhaps a refund.
Chiratas N
A country for all
I have to thank Dusit Thammaraks for his letter “Reds invented elites” (Postbag, Nov 14). I haven’t read anything quite so funny since an American brain surgeon and front-runner for the presidential nomination claimed that the Egyptian pyramids were built as grain silos, not pharaohs’ tombs.
So, since slavery ended in Thailand in 1905, the country has had “no class differences” - until recently? And, “there was no difference whether you were rich or poor, educated or uneducated, influential or not influential and whether you were a Thai or a foreigner”?
So all Thais go to the same schools, use the same hospitals, the same universities, and are treated in the same way by the police and the courts, and have the same opportunities in life? Really?
So “before Thaksin, the Thai nation lived in relative harmony”? Maybe Mr Dusit is confused by the difference between “harmony” and fear, where nobody speaks out because they are afraid to, like children in a classroom run by a teacher carrying a big stick which is used frequently and indiscriminately to promote “harmony”.
Ed Inthesand
Price of freedom
I read Mr Geng’s letter, “Unfit to be our leader” (Postbag, Nov 15) with the usual ho-hum attitude. Would Mr Geng rather live in France, a very free, democratic country with its elected leadership, freedom of this, freedom of that, with its very high ideals of “liberty, equality, fraternity”?
With all its democracy, Frenchmen are living in fear, afraid to walk the streets, looking over their shoulders, watching for suspicious people, and reporting any lone or abandoned parcels, etc.
Democracy has its price, Mr Geng. Not all Thais are willing to pay so highly for lofty ideals. The end results are, as shown in France, very expensive.
David James Wong
Thailand’s terror
The world is outraged at the terrorist attacks in France, as is appropriate.
Yet every two days, all year long, year after year, more people are killed on the roads in Thailand.
Where is the international outcry, one might well ask.
Michael Setter