Thailand to further develop national education

BANGKOK, May 9 (TNA) - The Office of the Education Council (OEC) and the Office of the National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT) have signed an agreement on jointly tailoring new strategies for educational research to address education problems and to further develop national education. Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Phongthep Thepkanjana told reporters on Thursday, one day after presiding over the signing of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the OEC and the NRCT, that he believes the merger of small schools, as part of the strategies, will further improve educational standard in Thailand, referring to the Education Ministry's plan to close and merge small schools with fewer than 60 pupils each. Pongthep said that such small schools are mostly substandard due to having too few teachers who are, in no other ways, to teach pupils of many classes, which compromises teaching quality. The deputy premier and education minister acknowledged that schools in the violence-plagued Thai deep South will, probably, be spared from the plan, as local students and teachers in the troubled southern border Thai region are better protected at small schools. (TNA)