Bring it on...
Re: "A critical lack of thinking", (Editorial, Dec 6).
While it was a joy to hear that Education Minister Nataphol Teepsuwan believes that "every MP should contribute to promoting education", I was a little perplexed that he thinks open debate might interfere with promoting education, debating long being known to contribute to a range of skills desirable in any sound education.
Mr Nataphol was unhappy when the Future Forward Party (FFP) MP Chirat Thongsuwan discussed conscription during a school visit. He accused him of being an opportunist who uses tricks and propaganda to instil "hatred" against the military among youngsters, in what he said was "a very evil thing to do".
As far as I am concerned, I would propose the minister take this opportunity to encourage formal debates at schools on topical, controversial issues. Formal debating is a powerful way to practise critical thinking skills that are essential to modern life, helping debaters on both sides to better understand the issues under discussion, deepening their awareness of complexity and learning to sort out real from fake claims, all of which are valuable life skills for students to learn.
By choosing topical issues to debate, students will be motivated to study not only the specific subject, such as conscription, but related issues, such as what national defence truly requires. Such engaged interest on issues which concern them and their nation is surely a proper aim of any decent education. In addition to instilling awareness of national issues, debates on such topics as conscription will encourage students to study history, enhancing their awareness of how their nation came to be the state it is today.
Moreover, such motivated research will hone students' reading skills, notoriously weak in traditional Thai education as regularly shown in Pisa tests. This improved historical awareness of their nation's evolution allied to stronger reading skills are surely additional desirable educational outcomes. Finally, debating the pros and cons of truly controversial issues will not only give the students the ability to make better decisions when they come to exercise their rights to vote, but will also deepen their understanding of ethics, of justice and a good life, of what makes an act or an existing state morally right or wrong.
Again, it is hard to see how the minister could object to such strengthening of the moral foundations that are an important aspect of education. The minister should thank Mr Chirat for bringing such productive debate to education.