Progress needs level playing field

‘Congratulations!” I told Saw, my best friend from Satit Pathumwan, on being accepted into Chulalongkorn Medical School. At school, she was one of the brightest students around. I watched in awe as she placed 29th out of more than 10,000 students applying to the science-math track at Triam Udom Suksa High School; she would later receive a scholarship from the Thai government to study at an American college.

Saw’s academic accomplishments are the results of years of hard work. But beyond her natural intelligence, she had spent countless hours attending tutoring schools. Other friends who got into top medical schools — the most competitive programmes in the country — were beneficiaries of the same thing. Their lives were occupied by the endless prospect of school after school, school on the weekend, and more school during the summer vacation. All this work was geared towards an equally endless regime of exams. Entrance exams determine Thais’ future. In a society where elites control major businesses, nepotism runs through politics, and connections come before qualifications, the path to success for most young Thais is narrow. Academic achievement is one of the few ways through which success can be measured.

Thailand’s university admission system is designed to operate based on merit. The standardised entrance exams are believed to be the most precise and objective measurement to compare applicants, as it leaves out other subjective variables. Yet that reasoning would only be legitimate if every student has an equal opportunity to the same quality of education. That is far from the case in Thailand, where the quality of public education is far from standardised. Poorer students who rely on public education are not able to compete with students with abundant resources, which could afford extra classes and/or tutoring. As for my friends and I, we were already front-runners before the tests even began.

Sadly, this problem has gotten worse over time. Between 1999–2017, the National Institute of Educational Testing Service (NIETS) changed the entrance exam seven times. Those changes — by accident or by design — enhanced the gap between rich and poor students.

When Advanced National Education Test (A-Net) and the Ordinary National Education Test (O-Net) exams were introduced in 2006, students complained about the numbers of exams they had to take in one year, as O-Net required them to study eight subjects while the A-Net required an additional five. Those complaints went ignored, as NIETS later introduced General Aptitude Test and Professional and Academic Aptitude Test, also known as GAT-PAT in 2009, which added even more exams to the mix. Furthermore, GAT-PAT received a great deal of criticism about the difficulty of its exams. A friend of mine who took PAT 1 (mathematics) said the material was so difficult that a number of students handed in blank papers.

The current system, Thai University Central Admission System, increased the number of admission rounds to five, and each round requires different preparations. The application fees aren’t cheap either. It costs from 600–1,000 baht to participate in each round — over two times the country’s minimum daily wages.

Who, then, are these changes designed to benefit?

Venussa Poovudhikul of Stanford University, conducted a research on Thai admission policy and found that households which invest more in private tutoring receive substantially higher education outcomes than those which spend less. She also found that changes made to the admission system in 2010, which increase the weight of test scores by 10%, favours households which are subjected to less budget constraints.

There is no doubt that every university wants to have the brightest students. However, top universities should recognise that the academic success of their students, if measured solely by test scores, is significantly dependent on their socio-economic status. If the admission system continues down this path, they, too, will worsen inequality in Thai society.

There are three main things which need to be done. First, we must reevaluate and increase our national publicschool budget. Even Education Minister Nataphol Teepsuwan announced that this was to be this year’s priority, but no specific strategy was mentioned. Thunyaporn Supakarn, External Relations Lead at EdWINGS Education, an education startup which aims to reduce education inequality in Thailand, suggests that the most significant issue faced by most small public schools in rural areas is budget and labour constraint. Teachers are not be able to commit 100% to their students if they are also responsible for other administrative tasks at the school. Therefore, the Ministry of Education must make sure that each school has an adequate budget to run a quality school, so teachers do not have to do everything themselves.

Secondly, entrance exams must correspond directly to the curriculum. Once public education becomes standardised, there must be an active collaboration between the Ministry of Education and NIEST to ensure that the test questions are within the scope of the core curriculum taught in schools. Some might wonder, if the tests are made to be less challenging, wouldn’t everyone get high marks? If schools are standardised, the admission system can move towards a more holistic approach. It might involve placing a higher weight on GPA, extracurriculars, personal essays, and so forth — all the while minimising the importance of tutoring.

Finally, bringing in the public is the most important factor. Thus far, few popular suggestions have been incorporated into the admissions process. To create a fairer admission system, NIETS has to involve students’ testimonials into the process. Only then can we create a better education system for all Thais, and not just for those students like Saw, with the resources to back up her talent.

Thunpicha Pinniam is senior international relations student at Boston University.