Asia takes a crash course in educational reform
Matthew Pennington, Bangkok-based journalist, with additional reporting by Jeeraporn Chaisri.
In Singapore, where most children receive 10 years of state schooling,
the accent is now being put on more creative thinking and learning.
‘The main risk (of failure) is the old bugaboo of Thailand —political instability,
but with the new constitution in place it feels more secure.’
In Indonesia, the financial crisis has led to a sharp rise in school
dropout numbers.
Thailand is in the midst
of the most far-reaching educational reform in over 70 years.
In Malaysia, schools
are being equipped with computers through a state partnership with the private sector.
‘Decentralization is a must. What the
crisis has done is speed up the process.’
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Thailand’s National Education Key measures of the new “education constitution”: |
Southeast Asia’s booming
economy for decades masked deficiencies in educational systems. But now, in the wake
of financial crisis, the region is bent on getting smarter faster
Asia’s financial crisis
may have a silver lining, at least when it comes to education. In the wake of the
crisis that began in 1997, the limping Southeast Asian tigers are shoring up their
educational systems to make their economies stronger and more resilient to the type
of financial shock which has left the region reeling from recession.
In Thailand, a constitutional overhaul is leading to the biggest shake-up of the
educational system since the days of absolute monarchy. Indonesia has introduced
an emergency scholarship system. Malaysia is launching its first computerized “smart
schools”. And Singapore has begun a campaign to teach innovative thinking.
Despite differences among the Southeast Asian countries, a few main threads run throughout
their approaches. First, these countries recognize the need for a quantum leap in
basic education and skills standards in order for the labour force to regain competitiveness.
Second, rote learning is giving way to a new call for creative thinking. Finally,
in Thailand and Indonesia, authority over curricula and spending is being decentralized
to make education more responsive to local needs.
Even before the crisis, it was clear educational systems in many cases were lagging
behind economic development in Southeast Asia. For three decades these countries
had ridden the crest of export-oriented economic growth. An important pillar of the
growth was cheap, unskilled labour. However, in recent years countries like China,
Viet Nam and India have undercut the cost of labour in Southeast Asia. This left
Southeast Asia less competitive in provision of bargain-priced labour for basic manufacturing.
Meanwhile, skills training was not keeping pace with the global market, making it
difficult for these countries to compete in high added value industries such as information
technology (IT).
In Thailand and Indonesia, though all this was apparent prior to 1997, governments
dragged their feet about addressing the deficiencies. It was easier to put off much-needed
reforms then because the economies were growing quickly, overall standards of living
were improving and there was little pressure on governments to undertake important
reform. Malaysia and Singapore have generally been forward-looking when it comes
to education. The fallout of the crisis has increased their resolve to develop even
more sophisticated educational systems.
Thailand
revamps its constitution
“There’s a link between
our education and economic models,” says Professor S. Gopinathan, Singapore’s National
Institute of Education (NIE) dean, in reference to his country’s educational system.
“Our economy has been based on export-led industrialization, which requires reasonably
educated and obedient labour, as well as capital and markets. But the new economic
paradigm will be value-added in an entirely different kind of way: the ability to
use knowledge and data.”
In Thailand an ambitious education reform bill, which lays the foundations for the
most radical shake-up of the pedagogical system since the British-educated King Rama
VI (1910-25) introduced compulsory education to the country, is set to be approved
by parliament.
Deputy Education Minister Somsak Prisanantakul calls it a “turning point for Thai
society”, that will lead to less state dominance of education, and more public participation.
It amounts to what is being called a new educational constitution, incorporating
the right, enshrined in Thailand’s new “people’s” charter adopted in late 1997, of
every Thai to 12 years of state-paid education—compared with the current average
in practice of 5.3 years.
During the 30 years up to the financial crisis that began in July 1997, as per capita
gross domestic product quadrupled in real terms, primary school enrolment grew from
around 70 per cent to 90 per cent. Secondary school enrolment rose from 40 per cent
to over 70 per cent.
But fundamental problems have persisted with the education system, in which one in
every four children aged between six and 17 is still not in school, and modes of
teaching appear increasingly outdated. Rote learning prevails and to the minds of
alternative educationalists in Thailand, this cultivates obedience to authority rather
than stimulating independent thought. Most critically in the eyes of economic planners,
the Thai workforce is under-qualified and lacks technical expertise.
Even before the crash, concerns were growing about Thailand’s ability to shift from
a labour-intensive to a more technology-based era. “We were reliant on expertise
from abroad,” said Sombat Suwanpitak, the Thai government’s director of non-formal
education development.
According to a 1996 government survey, three-quarters of the workforce aged over
21 years had no secondary education. At the upper end of the educational scale there
was a dearth of international-standard science and engineering graduates coming out
of a university system traditionally oriented to producing government bureaucrats.
This reality, driven home by the crisis, has given additional impetus to the reform
bill, seen as the foundation for developing the quality education Thailand needs.
Passed by the lower house of Thailand’s parliament in March, it marks a shift in
priorities, increasingly evident across Southeast Asia, towards learner-centred education,
which lays greater stress on creative and analytical ability than on rote learning.
“The majority of teachers are used to standing at the front of the class and giving
a lecture,” says Dr. Rung Kaewdang, secretary-general of the Office of the National
Education Commission. “Now there will be a shift towards assisting individual pupils
and group learning.”
Young Thais seem to approve. “Students should learn how to be independent and competitive,”
says Ms. Chanthima Sujjavirakul, 22, an accounting student at Bangkok University.
They should be “ready to learn for themselves.”
Implementing legislation expected over the next few years will devolve both academic
and financial power to schools and local authorities, scything the responsibility
of ministry officials in Bangkok. Dr Rung argues that by promoting more direct involvement
of parents and governors in management of schools, the reforms will ensure greater
accountability—and sidestep large-scale corruption. For example, before the crisis,
the ministry of education was embroiled in a scandal over the procurement of computers,
which became a national political issue.
Meanwhile, giving more responsibility to teachers for devising their own curricula—rather
than sticking rigidly to the national curriculum—should in theory make education
more sensitive to the needs of local communities. This is a priority for the estimated
550,000 of the population from hilltribe minorities living along the mountainous
borders with Laos and Myanmar, whose education lags badly behind that of lowland
Thais.
However, educational experts worry the country could be trying to embark on too many
changes at once. “It’s a massive task, to streamline the ministries, to undertake
decentralization of the system, to give jurisdiction to communities which have no
expertise in managing schools, and on top of that, strive for academic excellence,”
says Gary Suwannarat, a staff consultant to the Asian Development Bank in Thailand.
“The main risk (of failure) is the old bugaboo of Thailand—political instability,”
says John Middleton, World Bank senior education adviser in Thailand. “But with the
new constitution in place things feel more secure.”
Indonesia
decentralizes
In Indonesia, political
reform since the fall last year of the military ruler of 32 years, President Suharto,
has given momentum to changes in the education system. Gains during Suharto’s reign—when
education was the cornerstone of development policy and the proportion of the population
without primary schooling shrunk from around three-quarters to one-third—are under
threat.
A 13 per cent contraction in the economy in 1998, causing a sharp decline in urban
family incomes and their ability to cover the modest expenses of state schooling,
presented education authorities with their own crisis—to prevent mass dropouts.
The most worrying rise in dropouts has been in urban areas, where they have tripled
last year in secondary schools, particularly among girls. According to a World Bank
study, female enrolment in junior secondary schools in Jakarta dropped by 19 per
cent in 1998/99.
In the crime-ridden Indonesian capital there has been a clear increase in street
children cleaning windshields, begging, and selling newspapers. “Jockeys” hang around
road intersections leading into the central business district, to earn cash by offering
to be passengers for car drivers who risk a fine if they go into the congested city
centre in an empty vehicle. “The overall effect, of course, is that these kids are
going nowhere near schools,” noted Stephen Hill, UNESCO representative in Indonesia.
In an effort to prevent mass school dropouts, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and
the World Bank have pumped over $300 million of loans into a five-year scheme to
provide scholarships to some four million students from poor families across Indonesia
at risk of ditching secondary school, as well as 140,000 block grants to schools
reeling from a drop in real terms of state funding. According to a recent World Bank
report, even before the crisis, many schools needed books, supplies and substantial
maintenance, with government grants to primary schools amounting to less than $0.40
per pupil per year.
The scholarship scheme has been supported by a major state-backed “Stay in School”
campaign, with adverts on TV with the catch phrase “aku anak sekolah”—“I’m a schoolkid.”
All funds are being dispersed, when possible, directly to student and school accounts
held at post offices across the country, in a bid to cut out on administrative overheads
and “leakage”.
Education minister Juwono Sudarsono has conceded in a recent interview that graft
is a problem—and that from 10 to 15 per cent of the funds are likely to be written
off. Concerns have also been voiced about delays in disbursement.
The ADB is upbeat about the scholarship scheme, which it sees as laying the groundwork
for a radical decentralization of education financing in the future. An official
monitoring report of the scheme concluded that 81 per cent of the $2.50 per month
scholarships have reached the poorest students in the first year, and virtually all
have received the correct amount of money.
Government officials sound a more cautious note, seeing the scheme as a stop-gap
measure. But the process of decentralization of authority for school budgets and
management appears inevitable. “Decentralization is a must,” said Dr Indra Djati
Sidi, director-general of primary and secondary education, adding that educational
programmes devolving more authority to districts for teacher training and construction
of schools had actually started two years ago. “What the crisis has done is speed
up the process.”
The education ministry appears set on retaining control of the core national curriculum
and exams, but acknowledges that districts have a better idea of the educational
needs of communities than officials in Jakarta. The government policy introduced
in the early 1990s to allow 20 per cent local content in the school curriculum—essential
in an ethnically and geographically diverse country of 200 million people—remains
hamstrung by a lack of local capacity to go beyond the rigid national curriculum.
Malaysia
and Singapore: smart schools and creative kids
Malaysia and Singapore
have pressed ahead with ambitious plans to change the whole concept of schooling.
Malaysia embarked this year, albeit falteringly, on a “smart schools” project to
provide the country with the innovative IT experts and computer-savvy workers of
tomorrow, in what the government is touting as a unique partnership between the state
and private sector.
A consortium of 12 mainly multinational IT firms have been charged with devising
systems and software to equip 90 fully computerized schools. Some 30 per cent of
the designated schools are in rural areas.
“If we don’t go hi-tech and embrace brain-intensive industries, then Malaysia will
be left reliant on labour-intensive industries, forever a developing country,” declares
Dr Rojani Abdul Hamid of the Malaysian ministry of education
The idea is for the consortium to design a “total solution” for computerized schools,
including electronic teaching materials as well as systems for student assessment
and administration and management. Children will be able to study at their own speed,
and take exams—accessed online from a centralized database—when they are ready to.
“Courseware” on CD Rom will be provided for four subjects: science and technology,
maths, English and Bahasa Melayu (the national language of Malaysia).
The overriding aim is to provide the skills base for the planned Multimedia Super
Corridor, an IT industrial hub which will stretch 50 kilometres south from the capital,
Kuala Lumpur—the centrepiece of Premier Mahathir Mohamad’s drive for Malaysia to
achieve developed nation status by 2020.
Computer industry sources say the economic crisis and problems of coordinating the
private sector consortium has caused delays. The education ministry has stepped into
the breach, devising interim computer lesson plans and other teaching materials to
ease the still-underequipped schools into the IT era.
Singapore meanwhile has announced plans to invest over $2.6 billion into building
and upgrading 290 schools over the next seven years, on its relentless quest to improve
an education system of already remarkable efficiency. The majority of children among
the Singaporean population of 3.5 million pass through 10 years of state schooling.
But these achievements belie insecurity about the innovative ability of Singaporean
students. Last year, the NIE, which is responsible for all teacher training, adopted
a new programme that represents a sea change in the approach to classroom learning.
It’s called “teaching thinking” and is designed to encourage what was once taboo—students
coming up with their own ideas.
According to the NIE’s Professor Gopinathan, Singapore has previously relied on content
mastery or the “pedagogy of the worksheet”. But the global economy of the future
demands something more. “We need a learning environment that allows for flexibility
and collaborative learning,” he says.