Teaching way forward

As a staunch supporter of education reform, I applaud the Teacher Council of Thailand’s (TCT) decision to adopt the four-year bachelor of education model ( BP, July 15). That’s a 20% reduction from the current five-year programme.

Under the TCT’s decision, all graduates will take a central examination to obtain a teaching licence, unlike previously where graduates received the licence upon graduation by default. This will benefit future teachers immensely. Not only will this reduce their financial burden, but they will master practical teaching skills in the market sooner, with quicker graduates turnover for universities. The devil is in the detail; however, some issues need clarification.

1. Questions and content in the central exam must be directly consistent with and reflect the materials learned from the four years, not some obscure materials.

2. What happens if students fail the central exam? Can they retake the exam after meeting certain conditions?

3. Why will only some and not all universities shorten the programme to four years? Let’s not have a situation where students choose prestigious universities with the traditional five-year bachelor of education programme over other less distinguished universities with a four-year programme, paving the way for discrimination and inequality.

4. Shortening to four years is a good start. The next step is redesigning the curriculum, with the aim of making it effective and efficient in delivering the best teaching outcomes. Hint: Look at other countries.

5. To those resistant to the plan: Indeed, you will lose fifth-year revenue and other benefits. But what you lose is offset by society’s overwhelming gains through more teachers, better teacher-student ratios, a more educated population — it’s called positive externality in economic parlance.

EDWARD KITLERTSIRIVATANA