Abuse in schools? That's an old story.
It's a topic my school friends and I talked about sometimes when we were together.
We talked about which teacher was the most feared, what mischief we did to get us in trouble, and in what manner we were punished.
The punishment was supposed to keep us on the straight and narrow. There's a Thai saying: "Love your cows, tie them up; love your children, beat them." I guess it's equivalent to the western saying "spare the rod, spoil the child".
Dress code violations and fist-fights were two of the most common offences. It was mainly the boys who got into trouble.
We laugh about it now. We didn't laugh about it then. No one treated it as a big issue, though, because everybody accepted it as part of schooling. It would be odd if teachers didn't give their students a good beating sometimes.
I'm glad to say most of us turned out alright. We have kept ourselves on the straight path and become productive citizens.
Over half a century later, people's attitude toward corporal punishment has changed. In spite of it, some old practices remain.
This time it's not just boys but girls as well who get tangled up with school authorities.
Recently, though, their dissatisfaction with their treatment at schools has exploded into a series of protests in and outside of school.
It is apparent the country's attempt to develop into an industrial society has exerted great pressure on everyone.
Government agencies responsible for education have to steer education toward responding to industries' needs.
Schools must respond in kind to produce efficient workers.
And parents want to make sure their children do not miss educational opportunities which can turn into future job prospects.
All this pressure inevitably comes down on top of children.
What happened at Sarasas School is nothing new. Little children have been abused in class for as long as we can remember. The differences are the changing social conditions and expectations of everyone involved.
The intense competition in the job market and the desire to ensure their children a place in the top rung of society have driven many parents to the extreme.
We have heard horror stories before of children being forced to go through regular schools, followed by tutoring schools, and ending up the day with schoolwork at home.
That leaves them exhausted with little time to be children and play.
The same goes for their parents who are deprived of time to take proper care of their children.
And pressure never seems to let up as the youngsters progress through various levels of education.
But the end product of the intensive drilling of lessons and a restrictive regulatory regime are far different from what the authorities have intended.
Instead of a capable, well-disciplined workforce, we have mainly adults capable of obeying orders but incapable of imagining anything outside the box.
Ironically, everyone seems to agree that the education system needs fixing. But this has been the case for years and nothing ever gets done to fix these structural flaws.
The same can be said of the entire bureaucracy, unfortunately. The justice system needs reform. The military needs reform. The administrative system needs reform. On and on it goes.
But an education system that puts children under enormous physical, mental and emotional strains must be tackled urgently.
The children themselves have been trying in vain to tell the adults for a long time about the woes they've faced.
Now they have taken their grievances directly to the people. The "Bad Student" and associated groups have been discussing among themselves for quite some time and only now are going public.
Some adults were shocked by what they saw as aggressive and disrespectful behaviour.
But what do you expect? The children are angry. They are sick and tired of the system that does not regard them as human beings worthy of respect and equal treatment.
They had been obedient and trying to please the adults around them but were treated as if they were soldiers in military barracks who are expected to take abuses without complaints.
The Sarasas scandal is just another symptom of a seriously ill system. Parliament is bogged down in acrimony among the parties, and the government is too paralysed by political fighting and its own incompetence to respond to the national crises.
The country's youth entertain little hope of seeing changes under this military-inspired constitution that has taken the country back decades and stopped its forward motion.
Their only hope now depends upon their ability to push for a constitutional rewrite that will usher in a new government that is better able to respond to the changing times.