OPINION

Public schools first

Re: "Revenues plummet for elite schools," (BP, Sept 6).

The private schools demanding that the government intervene due to liquidity issues and plummeting revenues should be stopped. Government monies should be used for public education first and foremost. Private schools are a business venture and are on their own just like most for profit enterprises!

Having run proprietary schools myself, the business model is relatively simple; "X" number of students pays for one teacher's salary. Not enough students, then no teacher salary required. Basically, a supply and demand issue.

Lack of liquidity in such a business model means that all the profit of an institution has been siphoned off by greed of the investors rather than "saved for a rainy day".

It is not the responsibility of the government and taxpayers to make up for the shortfalls and short sightedness of the private school owners and investors.

General public education has enough problems financially supporting student education here that it cannot support the burden of providing profit or revenues for private education ventures.

Re: "US snub a wake-up call," (Editorial, Sep 4).

US Vice President Kamala Harris visit was to ally Singapore and Vietnam against China. Thailand has little to no strategic positioning to be very useful for the US purposes.

Western media has been quite critical of Ms Harris' diplomatic skills in both Vietnam and Singapore. Some describe the trip as a diplomatic disaster. If there was ever any chance Ms Harris was going to visit Thailand, it is possible said plans were abandoned as a damage control measure.

Joe Biden is currently moving to replace the US ambassador to Vietnam (I think he was a Trump appointee) and the current ambassador may have been less than helpful in briefing Ms Harris about current policy and sentiment in Vietnam. That might partially responsible for what some called a "tone deaf speech".

Lastly, Thailand has started buying more weaponry from China and the US economy needs to sell more weapons to survive. Thailand could be seen as being in bed with the enemy from a Western perspective.

Is it no wonder that people are out on the streets protesting at this government and its leaders? On Aug 31 it was announced that "Restaurant staff and customers would not need to be vaccinated against Covid, after the rules were relaxed to allow a restricted number of customers at one time". The eateries got geared up for this and thought it was the light at the end of the tunnel. Now unsurprisingly, the Health Ministry has announced that from Oct 1, all staff and customers must be fully vaccinated, or have negative antigen tests! Back to square one. What about those who have been unable to get vaccinated? The light at the end of the tunnel was a train coming in the opposite direction.