<div> <div>As the teacher worshipping season approaches in Thailand, a group of Thai students led by renowned student activist Netiwit has proposed new ways of paying respect to teachers to replace the long-practised ceremony which glorifies the importance of hierarchy in Thai society.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Last week, the group led by Netiwit Chotipatpaisan, a student activist who advocates Thai education reform, published a short film parody of the ‘Wai Khru’ ceremony, a ceremony where students pay respect to teachers by prostrating themselves before their teachers with a bouquet of </div></div>

<div>Sulak talked about lèse majesté cases involved former kings, analyzed the ultra-royalists who hold narrow and nationalistic views of Thai history, the planned education reform, with more nationalistic, and royalist elements, the coup and succession.</div> <div> </div>

<div> <div>Open Letter 1/2014</div> <div>Education for Liberation of Siam</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>16 September 2014</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Dear General Prayuth Chan-ocha, the Prime Minister of Thailand, the Head of the National Council for Peace and Order, the Chairman of the Board of Investment, the Chairman of the Joint Private-Public Standing Committee, the Chairman of the National Energy Policy Committee, the Chairman of the State Enterprise Policy Committee, the Chairman of the Policy Committee on Special Economic Zone Development, </div></div>

<p>Educational reform is going to be tricky.&nbsp; I mean, where to start?</p> <p>The Office of the Vocational Education Commission or OVEC (sibling to Basic Ed or OBEC and Higher Ed or OHEC) (stop giggling there; if they hadn’t called it that it would be Further Ed) (OK you may laugh now) has already had to start its reform by recalling its Basic Mathematics textbooks.&nbsp; Or more accurately the covers.</p>

<p>The captain of Thai industry was interested to see the results of Thailand’s education reform.&nbsp; Hearing that a fast-tracked ‘model student’ had applied for employment at his firm, he decided to conduct the interview himself.&nbsp;</p> <p>Thai businesses have long complained that the products of the Thai education system are virtually unemployable, lacking the skills necessary for the modern economy.&nbsp; The CEO was eager to see the results of the NCPO-inspired reform of the schooling system in developing the kind of graduates that the corporate sector required.</p>

<div>Two months after the coup d’état in May, the Thai junta vowed to reform the Thai education system, which is one of the worst in the region. But instead of paying attention to structural problems, the junta’s policy for the Ministry of Education aims to focus on indefinable ‘merit’ and more nationalistic history classes. </div>

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