Thailand's "poorly thought-out" university admission system:
Sanitsuda Ekachai on how students and their parents are suffering
By Jon Fernquest |
Few have as much guts as Sanitsuda Ekachai, leading Thai journalist at the Bangkok Post, to tell it like it is, even if she might ruffle a few feathers.
This week Sanitsuda focused on higher education (tertiary education) in Thailand and the barriers that bright promising students face trying to gain entrance to Thailand's top universities.
The system is almost certainly biased towards children with rich parents who can make sure their children are at the right place at the right time and pay all the necessary tutoring fees.
A democratic educational system for upward mobility?
The political conflicts that Thailand is currently undergoing have been likened by many to a class war with Thaksin winning the hearts as well as votes of the rural poor.
If this "class war" is ever going to end, the rural poor have to be given the means to upward social mobility and this means access to the highest educational institutions in the land where they can hone their intellectual skills with the smartest in Thailand and network with the wealthy and powerful.
Parents consulted about new educational policies?
What do the parents of students want for their children? The answer to this question reflects a form of democracy, too often neglected, as Sanitsuda urges:
Ask any parent. Ask any high school student. Ask them about the endless and poorly thought-out changes these rectors have introduced to the university admission system, and they will say the same thing.
The same applies to new requirements for foreign English teachers, new requirements that ignore best practice in other Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea, that would disqualify even a PhD in linguistics from being an English teacher in Thailand.
Were the parents consulted about this?
No wonder the new laws will probably be ignored. How else will Thailand be able to recruit English teachers with much heavier workloads and lower pay than other Asian countries such as South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan?
Or perhaps English teaching, like so many other activities in Thailand, will be relegated to the "grey" or illegal economy that operates under the radar of the nation's laws?
Will this be the only way to give the parents what they want for their children?
Here is Sanitsuda Ekachai's column in full:
COMMENTARY
Rectors devise a nightmare for students
SANITSUDA EKACHAIThursday August 21, 2008
These people must really hate children. Otherwise they could not have possibly come up with new schemes to torture our children no end.
I am talking about our university rectors.
Longstanding national university entrance exam replaced, then problems, problems, problems
Ask any parent. Ask any high school student. Ask them about the endless and poorly thought-out changes these rectors have introduced to the university admission system, and they will say the same thing.
Before 1999, all high school students sat in the same annual national university entrance examination to get seats in the university of their choice.
Indeed this system had many flaws. The emphasis on just one annual exam made it a do-or-die matter for high school students. They ignored classroom learning, preferring to attend tutoring schools which helped them crack the exams.
Despite the flaws, it was undeniably a fair and reliable screening system, given the corruption in all levels of our society.
All hell broke loose when the Council of University Rectors replaced the exam with a poorly designed regime that turned things from bad to worse.
For example, take the use of high school cumulative grade points average (GPAX) as one of the key ingredients in the new university admission system. According to a recent study, more than half the number of state high schools inflate their students' grades to give them the extra push.
The devil is also in the other details. Inaccurate grade calculation, for example.
According to Amnuay Soonthornchote, a vocal critic of the admission system, a raw score of 50% in high school may be the equivalent of a D grade. But when translated into the university admission score, that D gets only 25%.
In the same vein, a student with a raw score of 90% may have got an A in high school. Yet that translates into a full 100% in the university admission system.
The university admissions exam, one day, one chance, or miss it...for the rest of your life...
This unfair calculation must stop, demand the affected students. So must the rule requiring students to take O-Net (Ordinary National Education Test) the same year they sit in the university admission exam.
What if your kid got sick and could not take the O-net test that year? Do they get a second chance?
The answer is no.
No changes in majors, exams set this in stone
What if your children want to take the university admission exam again to study in a different faculty or university?
What if they want to change track from science to liberal arts, or vice versa?
The answer is again no, and no. High school grades in foundation subjects are a requisite under the new admission system. And without the O-Net scores from the same admission year, your children are considered unqualified.
Mind you, all those choices were possible under the old system.
So what do we have now? The tutoring school business is thriving as ever, if not more. Meanwhile, our children are under much greater stress. Now, the students must sweat throughout high school to ensure good cumulative grades. Instead of one annual exam, they must take two national exams, the O-Net and the A-Net (Advanced National Education Test).
That's not all. Many deans in different universities think poorly of the admission system designed by their rectors, so their faculties offer their own additional exams.
Two years from now, the Council of Rectors will make our children take even more exams, by replacing the A-net with two general and professional aptitude tests. At first, they did not even include foreign languages in the professional aptitude test. That changed after protests from teachers of foreign languages.
Direct admissions as a way around the mess
It is clear that these rectors simply do not know what they are doing.
That is why the consortium of medical schools has announced that it does not trust the aptitude tests and will continue recruiting its medical students directly.
More will follow. The Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, is considering direct recruitment because the students under the admission system are too weak academically.
How weak? One-third of the new students had to drop out, said one lecturer.
The demand for a return to the old system is getting louder and louder. Unless the Council of Rectors stops playing the deaf game, an end to our kids' predicament is nowhere in sight.
Sanitsuda Ekachai is Assistant Editor (Outlook), Bangkok Post.
Email: sanitsudae@bangkokpost.co.th
(Source: Bangkok Post, op-ed section, page 9, Sanitsuda Ekachai, 21-08-08, temp-link)
Vocabulary:
have guts - be courageous and daring (not afraid or cowardly)
Sanitsuda Ekachai - an award-winning columnist, editor, and public intellectual who has written for the Bangkok Post for several decades
tell it like it is - tell the truth, describe hte actual situation
ruffles a few feathers - make some people angry or irritated
higher education, tertiary education - university education
bright promising students - smart students who are likely to succeed in their studies
at the right place at the right time - necessary to succeed, not always just luck
biased towards - more concerned with, favours more than others
X likened to Y - X said to be similar to Y
class war - conflict between different economic groups oin society (for example, poor Isan farmers with rich Bangkok urban dwellers)
X is a means to Y - X is a way of making Y happen, X leads to Y
upward social mobility - moving from lower positions in society (e.g. poor worker or farmer) to higher positions (e.g. rich business person, govenrment official)
hone - improve, make better over time
hone their intellectual skills - improve their thinking and reasoning skills
poorly thought-out - not planned well (did not think about what would happen)
university admission system - the system that universities use for deciding who to choose to study at the university
ignore - pretend not to see that something exists
best practice - the widely accepted best way of doing a common task in a business, industry, or profession (e.g. doctor)
disqualify - cannot participate in an acticity or event, because you did something wrong
consulted - asked their opinion about something
workloads - the amount of work that a person has to do everyday in their job
relegated to Y - given a lower or less important position Y
operates under the radar - operate in a way that it can't be seen
university rectors - university officials
flaws -
do-or-die matter - an extremely important matter
crack the exams - learn what it takes to pass or get a good score in the exam
undeniably - definitely true
fair - reasonable, right, and just
reliable - can be trusted to work well in the way that you expect them to work
screening - to examine and check to see if there are problems (and for acceptability)
a reliable screening system - things you can do to check for problemes that always work
all hell broke loose - suddently there was a very disorderly and chaotic situation
a regime - a system for running something (for example, a government or educational system)
a poorly designed regime - a system for running something that was not designed or worked very well
cumulative X - all X collected together, as they occur
cumulative grade points average - the average grade that a student received in all his or her classes since they began at the school
ingredients - the things used to make something
the key ingredients - the most important things used to make something
inflate their students' grades - teachers who give higher than normal grades to the whole class
the devil is in the details - the problem can only be seen, if you look closely at the details
vocal critic - a person who is not shy to talk and write about problems (criticize) in a very direct
a raw score - a score that has not been transformed or interpreted in any way
In the same vein,... - In a similar way,...
translates into - is transformed into
transform X into Y - change or convert A into Y through some process
set in stone - cannot be changed
liberal arts -
vice versa - he opposite or reverse
tutoring school business - schools that help students after schools, on the weekends, or on school breaks (often to prepare to get high scores on important tests)
under stress - feel worried and tense because of difficulties in your life
a dean - an important official at a college or a university (usually head of a whole school within the university, such as the "School of Engineering")
aptitude for Y - the ability to learn how to do work of activity Y well
aptitude tests - a test that shows whether you are likely to succeed or not in a course of study and a future job (whether you have the personality and skills necessary for success)
a consortium - a group cooperating with each other
recruiting - selecting appropriate people to join your organisation (and then persuading hem to join)
direct recruitment - going straight to the best people (an convincing them to join your organisation)
drop out - leave school early (before you are finished with your programme of study)
a predicament - a problem, difficult to solve
end nowhere in sight - cannot yet see or predict when it will end
