OPINION

Harness inspiraton

Prof Thitinan Pongsudhirak's Oct 9 article, "Thai education reform is top priority" summarises the frequently cited shortcomings of the education system and the reforms needed in it.

Examples of these shortcomings often appear in letters to PostBag. But reform seems never to be forthcoming, perhaps because calls for reform generate defensive resistance in the system.

However, although many Thai students are weak academically, there are also students who are insightful and creative. It would be interesting if Prof Thitinan's regular articles could include examples of studies by the best students in his field and in other fields such as science and the arts. These examples could inspire teachers and students to cultivate higher standards in their work.

Mindset change needed

Re: "Thai education reform is top priority", (Opinion, Oct 9).

I fully agree with Prof Thitinan Pongsudhirak that we desperately need top-to-bottom education reform; just look at our Pisa scores, consistently failing; how are we going to compete internationally when our students are indoctrinated to be robots, kept in line by routine corporal punishment, taught not to question?

I suggest that we adopt Bertrand Russell's philosophy: "Education should have two objectives: first, to give definite knowledge, reading and writing, language and mathematics, and so on; secondly to create those mental habits which will enable people to acquire knowledge and form sound judgments for themselves." Achieving these goals will promote sound, fact-based decision-making and lifelong learning, with teachers as guides rather than fountains of knowledge, and fulfil the student's goal of being "global citizens", equipped to express their views and ideas, questioning authority and the received wisdom, as Dr Thitinan put it. That will give us the thinking, questioning, creative citizens we need to fulfill our potential.

We should start by changing the mindset of education administrators and teachers to align with our goals, as outlined above. The role of administrators and teachers will change 180 degrees; they will now teach students to think, analyze, question, and decide for themselves.

Administrators and teachers should be trained in Sean Covey's 7 Habits of Highly-Effective People, which my former employer, The Stock Exchange of Thailand, teaches to all SET staff, helping SET become one of Asia's outstanding exchanges, regularly outperforming even Singapore in terms of turnover.

For example, one of the seven habits is "Begin with the goal in mind," which means that we would not evaluate students on their dress -- because dress is not correlated to ability to form sound judgments. Instead, we'd reward intelligent information-gathering and creative generating of alternatives. Reform education now; time's a-wasting.

Social needed

Re: "Time for more like Yimsoo", (Editorial, Oct 7).

Praise for PTT's Cafe Amazon in withdrawing from the bidding to run an outlet at Thammasat University's Faculty of Law where it was in competition with the Universal Foundation for Persons with Disabilities' Yimsoo Cafe. It is a good example of sacrificing commercial interests to provide an opportunity for the disabled to earn a living and have a place for on-site training.

Although equality is a rare occurrence in a competitive economy, it is possible if leading firms are more focused on social interests. Given such an opportunity, businesses run by people with disabilities can thrive and survive. But if it's naked business competition, Yimsoo might lose and end up just a legend.

Target lese majeste

Since it's generally considered bad public relations for protesters to call for reforming the monarchy, why not simply try to reform the lese majeste law?

Since even the late King himself said people shouldn't have to go to jail for criticising him, my proposal could hardly be considered offensive. On the other hand, those who demand all or nothing usually get nothing.

Sentencing concern

Re: "Murderer spared life sentence", (BP, Oct 7).

I have to wonder, if the roles were reversed and it had been the maid who had murdered the former beauty contestant, would the Appeal Court have been so quick to reduce the murderer's sentence?

Twitter equality

Since the army denies using Twitter for nefarious purposes, I assume they will be using that law which was used elsewhere so successfully to bring a poor unsuspecting tourist to his knees, to sue Twitter for defamation.