Bangkok:- To get a teachers’ license in Thailand, foreigners must first take a 21-hour course on Thainess and Thai education laws.
Prof Dr Paitoon Sinlarat, who heads the Teachers Council of Thailand (TCT), says the course is mandatory for any foreigner who is interested in taking a teaching job here.
“We have required them to take this course because Thai culture and theirs are completely different,” he says.
According to him, the course is a must even to foreigners who have already got a teacher’s license from their home country.
I can more or less guess what this course is all about. It’s a kind of obedience school to discourage teachers from encouraging their students to ask tough questions and confront issues with the intention of solving problems. Teaching the wrong values and shaping the wrong attitudes may cause Thailand’s fragile feudal system to crumble. Such is the irony of mai pen rai in the Land of the Free.
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