Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

My name is Kanyapat
Pitaksarit as a representative from Udonpittayanukoon school. I’m
about to deliver a speech under the topic Is the main aim of Thai
education to prepare student for a career?
You may know this quote “Education is the most powerful
weapon for changing the world.”

That’s why we spend 3 years in kindergarten school, 6 years in

elementary school, 3 years in middle school, 3 years in high school,
and more 4-6 years to finish Bachelor’s degree. The question is that are
we prepared for a career that’s coming?

I feel sorry to say that the main aim of Thai education is to

prepare students for standardized tests, not a career. Let’s me explain.
First, schools make you accumulate a lot of knowledge. Go and take
intensive Algebra class, Calculus class, advanced Physics, advanced
Chemistry, advanced Biology, English Grammar, Music theory, and don’t
forget to remember world history. I can’t deny that schools make
students more academically intelligent.

Second, every student has to take tests at least 4 times a year to get
grades—the number that people think can measure how smart you
are.

And third, some students will be praised if they get good grades, or if
they are the number one of the class. Some students who get bad
grades will be asked to meet a teacher or the principal with their
parents. They will be told you are not working hard enough. But trust
me, the happiness of being the number one in class replacing spending
your life time won’t last.
This makes students see grades as the most important thing in their
lives. You have to get all A, no matter what. Allow me to share my
personal experience. Majority of Thai students have to go to tutorial
schools every day. We spend more than 12 hours studying from 8AM
until 8PM every day, every Saturday and Sunday, as well as on a
st
vacation. Do you know that even the 1 grade students also have to go
to tutorial schools instead of taking a rest at home, too? We don’t have
time just staying at home and talking with our families. We don’t have
time doing sports, or doing our hobbies. All students are so competitive
with one another. Unfortunately, some students suffering from this
system committed suicide.

The education system creates the robots running on gasoline to do and

think in a certain way. Imagine that the robots are the students.
Gasoline is all academic classes they have to take. And the certain way
is acquiring good grades. Absolutely, robots are unwilling to think
outside the box, cannot solve problems if they aren’t controlled, and
lack passion. The reason why aren’t Thai students ready for a career
and the real world is that what they have learnt for 20 years in schools
is acquiring good grades.

Yes, getting good grades is good. But it’s just one metric. It cannot
guarantee the students to have a good career or even a good life. And
what is so much more important than the numbers that schools forget
to teach students are life skills: critical thinking, problem solving,
communication, self-esteem and self-confident, being disappointed,
being failed, adaptability, financial management, living in balance,
technology savvy etc. Two weeks ago, I accidentally found a book
named The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck. It’s about how to stop
trying to be positive all the time so that we can truly become better
and happier people. And I just think that why this is not told in
guidance period. While we make grades—the number—important, life
skills are gradually fading.

It’s not our grades aren’t important, it’s just that it’s not
everything. We should treat life skills which are so much important for
a career and real life with the same status.

Remember that “Education is not the learning of facts, but the training
of the mind to think.”