Thailand EDUCATION AND THE ARTS
CourtesyBangkok school children participating in Boy Scout and
Girl Guide program
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, United
States and British missionaries introduced formal European
education, primarily in the palaces. Up to that time, scholarly
pursuits had been confined largely to Buddhist temples, where
monastic instruction, much of it entailing the memorization of
scriptures, was provided to boys and young men. Like his father
Mongkut, King Chulalongkorn (Rama V, 1868-1910) wanted to
integrate monastic instruction with Western education.
Unsuccessful in this effort, he appointed his half brother,
Prince Damrong Rajanubhab, to design a new system of education.
Western teachers were engaged to provide assistance, and in 1921
a compulsory education law was enacted. In 1917 the first
university in the country, Chulalongkorn University, was
established.
Emphasis on education grew after the 1932 coup as a result of
the new constitutional requirement for a literate populace able
to participate in electoral politics. Government efforts focused
on primary education; private schools, concentrated in Bangkok
and a few provincial centers, supported a major share of
educational activity, especially at the secondary level. Despite
ambitious planning, little was accomplished. Even after World War
II, the educated segment of Thai society continued to consist
mainly of a small elite in Bangkok. The postwar years showed the
influence of American education. By the mid-1980s, perhaps as
many as 100,000 Thai students had studied in the United States,
and tens of thousands had benefited from Peace Corps and other
United States government educational assistance projects.
Only 4 million children were enrolled in government schools
in the 1960s, but by the late 1980s nearly 80 percent of the
population above the age of 11 had some formal education. This
dramatic change reflected government interest in accelerating the
pace of social development through education, especially in less
secure areas of the country, as a means of promoting political
stability. By 1983 an estimated 99.4 percent of the children
between the ages of 7 and 12 attended primary school. (Compulsory
schooling lasted only until grade six.) Adult literacy reportedly
was more than 85.5 percent in the mid-1980s, compared with about
50 percent in the 1950s. Substantial public investment and
foreign assistance made significant gains possible in literacy
and school enrollments (see
table 4, Appendix).
The government operated schools in all parts of the country,
but there were many private schools as well, chiefly in Bangkok,
sponsored principally by missionaries or Chinese communal
organizations. Several universities ran what were effectively
their own preparatory academies. In the late 1970s, the schools
were reorganized into a six-three-three pattern that comprised
six years of primary schooling, three years of lower secondary
education, and three years at the upper secondary level.
Students in the upper secondary program could choose either
academic or vocational courses. A core curriculum was common to
both tracks, but the academic program focused on preparation for
university entrance, whereas the vocational program emphasized
skilled trades and agriculture. Only a small percentage of
students continued their education beyond secondary school. Some
who would have chosen to do so failed to qualify for university
acceptance. Secondary-school graduates often had difficulty
finding suitable employment. Even vocational graduates in rural
areas frequently found their industrial skills poorly fitted to
the agro-economic job market.
Access to education and the quality of education varied
significantly by region. At the primary level, rural schools,
administered since 1963 by the Ministry of Interior, tended to
have the least qualified teachers and the most serious shortage
of teaching materials. In an effort to increase the number of
teachers, other ministries, including the Ministry of Defense,
offered teacher-training programs. Although more students gained
access to education, this arrangement led to a duplication of
resources. Competition began to replace cooperation among some of
the teachers' colleges and universities. Opportunities for
secondary education were concentrated in major towns and in the
Center. In the mid-1970s, Bangkok, with 10 percent of the
country's population, had 45 percent of the secondary-school
population, while the North and the Northeast combined, with 55
percent of the nation's population, had only 26 percent of these
students. The government has since attempted to rectify these
inequities by improving administrative structure, making
education more relevant to socioeconomic development, and adding
qualitative and quantitative support to both public and private
systems. Nevertheless, in the late 1980s the underlying problem
of inequitable distribution of funds between the Center and the
outlying provinces remained.
The Office of University Affairs administered higher
education at government universities (except for teachers'
colleges, military academies, and the two Buddhist universities)
and supervised higher education in private colleges. By the late
1980s, the country had 13 public universities, 3 institutes, and
about 10 private colleges, the latter accounting for only about 7
percent of total university enrollment. A Western education was
highly valued, and those who could afford to study abroad often
did. Chulalongkorn University was the leading domestic
university. Until the establishment of Ramkhamhaeng University in
1971, Chulalongkorn had the largest student body (18,000 full-
time and part-time students in 1987). Thammasat University
(11,000 student population in 1987) ranked next in academic
quality. Operations at Thammasat suffered somewhat from punitive
measures imposed after the massive student disorders of October
1973
(see Thailand in Transition
, ch. 1). Thereafter, Mahidol
University (formerly the University of Medical Sciences), which
had nearly 9,000 students in 1987, began to overtake Thammasat
University as Thailand's second-best university. Another
respected academic institution was the agricultural university,
Kasetsart University, which in 1987 had 11,000 students. All the
major universities were located in Bangkok. The various
provincial universities, which were established in the 1960s and
the 1970s, and a number of specialized academies, some of them in
Bangkok, mostly had small student populations. Chiang Mai
University, founded in 1964, however, had 13,000 students by
1987.
Pressure from a society that increasingly valued
career-oriented education was in part responsible for the
government's establishment of two "open universities," beginning
in 1971. Both open universities were established for those who
could not be accommodated by the older institutions of higher
learning, and each admitted secondary school graduates without
any competitive examination. Ramkhamhaeng University conducted
classes, whereas Sukhothai Thammathirat University offered its
courses via national radio and television broadcasts and by
correspondence. In 1987 Ramkhamhaeng had more than 400,000
students enrolled and Sukhothai Thammathirat more than 150,000.
To maintain its own language and script, Thailand constantly
promoted reading through both formal and informal education.
Thailand had one of the highest levels of functional literacy in
Asia as well as one of the largest publishing rates per person of
any developing nation. In 1982 there were 5,645 titles published,
more than 7 million radio receivers, 830,000 televisions, 69
daily newspapers, and 175 periodicals. Thai-language paperbacks,
often translations of English-language best-sellers or "how to"
books, had a wide audience. The publishing house of Kled Thai,
with 60 percent of the national market, distributed between
80,000 and 120,000 volumes monthly.
Thailand had a long history of written literature dating back
to the thirteenth century, when much of the literature written in
poetic style was religious or related to the monarchy. Examples
include the Maha Chat Kham Luang, an epic adapted from the
Buddhist Jataka tales, and Kotmai Tra Sam Duang, a legal
work on Buddhist ethics. Beginning with the Chakkri Dynasty in
the late eighteenth century, writing for both the court and the
public flourished. New trends in literary style included Phra
Aphai Mani, by Thailand's greatest poet Sunthon Phu
(1786-1855), the written version of the popular epic romance poem
called Khun Chang Khun Phaen, and Sang Thong,
attributed to King Loet La (Rama II, 1809-24). Dynastic
chronicles and poetry usually were dominant until the twentieth
century, when King Vajiravudh (Rama VI, 1910-25) helped foster
the birth of the modern Thai novel. Modern life was the theme of
books such as Phudi (The Genteel) by Dotmai Sot (1905-63)
or Songkhram Chiwit (The War of Life) by social realist Si
Burapha (1905-74). Specific social ills, such as inadequate
education, were documented in Khammaan Khonkhai's Khru Ban
Nok, translated by Genhan Wijeyeaardene as The Teachers of
Mad Dog Swamp, or in the revolutionary writings of Chit
Phumisak and the progressive poetry of Naovarat Pongpaiboon.
American culture influenced modern Thai art forms both
through Thai artists studying in the United States and through
the popularity of Hollywood movies. Modern artists such as Kamol
Tassananchalee have integrated American ideas into Thai art, just
as centuries before the artists of Sukhothai and Ayutthaya
applied Indian or Khmer concepts to Thai design. The modern
period in Thai art began in 1932 with the breakdown of the
traditional patterns of static society. A strong artistic
influence in the modern period was exerted by the work of Silpa
Bhirasri, an Italian-born professor. The Thai motion picture
industry's first film was made by a younger brother of King
Chulalongkorn in 1900. By the late 1980s, some 3,000 feature
films had been produced and a National Film Archives established.
Although a few of these films, such as Tong Pha Luang
(Yellow Sky, 1980) and Sut Thon Nun (End of the Road,
1985), were well known outside Thailand, the language barrier
rather than their quality or relevance limited their distribution
internationally.
In theater in the 1980s, Thailand produced khon
(classical masked drama) based on epics such as the Indian
Ramayana (Ramakian in Thai), as well as more modern
plays. Drama, like books, movies, and art, has moved out of the
royal palaces within the last century to be enjoyed by a wider
audience in a less controlled form, which incorporates Western
elements. The Thai people accepted Westernization in all areas,
including the arts, on their own terms as a pragmatic necessity
and not as something imposed by foreigners. For example, modern
techniques in set and costume designs, makeup, lighting, sound
systems, and theater construction were combined with traditional
drama such as the khon. Thai monarchs beginning with King
Mongkut initiated and led this modernization. King Bhumibol not
only continued this movement but also widened its scope in an
effort to make regional art forms an integral part of the Thai
national identity.
Data as of September 1987
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