OPINION

Lesson for educators

Re: "Steep online learning curve", (BP, May 20).

The most important lesson from the setback of online learning is that the Education Ministry does not have the expertise or the capability to reform education. Whether it is offline or online learning, the curriculum is neither intellectually stimulating or engaging.

It is true that these days a trove of high-quality educational material is freely available online. Unfortunately, most of it is in English. Khan Academy, based in California, is one of the best-known portals for learning any subject. There is a lot to learn from the success of Khan Academy, MOOCs (Massive open online course), and edX.

The ministry must work harder to ensure the curriculum is original, relevant, and interesting, or this new project will be a failure just like the current classroom teaching and learning format.

It is a well-known fact that quality comes from only one source -- the quality of people. It is important that online teaching initiatives are led by the right people.

Outsourcing works

Re: "Keeping old hands", (BP, May 19).

I fully agree with Khun Samanea Saman, that Thailand should make its immigration policies more welcoming for long-stay foreigners. Thais are famous for their hospitality from the heart, but we often show otherwise, such as two-hour lines at Suvarnabhumi immigration and requiring in-person visa renewals every 90 days.

With our economy reeling from Covid-19 and the TDRI (Thailand Development Research Institute) forecasting a -10% annual GDP growth for April 2020, now is the time to reform our immigration policies and procedures from top to bottom, so we attract and retain those with the funds we so badly need. For example, we can look to the department's Passport Division, which shortened the time needed to issue passports from half a day to a mere 10 minutes on my last visit, by outsourcing the entire process, with the person in charge of the passport issuance being the only civil servant in the entire office.

We could outsource most checking of passports at airports, basing payment to them on output and not time spent, with only a few immigration officials in charge. And, we could move visa renewal to go online permanently, as we are doing now on an emergency basis. We should work with the embassies of our main target markets to address our security and other concerns at minimum inconvenience for foreigners.

Testing my patience

Here in Chiang Mai, some 7-Eleven stores test my temperature before I enter while others don't. So if someone is told their temperature is too high to enter one store all they have to do is go down the block to another one which doesn't do temperature tests.