Rural kids falling through the cracks.
When I asked Nukid, my housekeeper, if she thinks it's better for her small sons to grow up in her village rather than in a big city like Bangkok, she vehemently shook her head.
"Let me tell you, the village is no longer a safe place," she said.
When I asked why, she gushed forth with the frustrations most mothers share.
"We mothers work very hard for one thing _ to give our children a good education so they can have a better life than ours. But what are we to do when the boys refuse to go school, drink, turn to drugs, and join gangs, while the girls get kicked out of school because they're pregnant?
"I'm not talking about just one or two kids in my village. This is a real problem for most parents there, including my sister.
"Her only wish now is for her teenage son to finish Mathayom 3 [Grade 9]. Forget Mathayom 6 _ the boy doesn't care. He refuses to talk to her, refuses to help with farm work, and spends most of his time playing online games.
"If he faces pressure at school, he gets violent with his friends and teachers. At home, when his mother scolds him with anger and frustration, he responds in kind.
"I can't see my nephew or other kids in the village earning a living from rice farming like their parents. They're living in a different world now. But what future do they have when they don't have an education?"
Nukid also has worries of her own. Her eldest son is a slow learner.
"What if he cannot finish high school? What choices do our children have when they are left behind in school?"
The miserable failure of the Education Ministry to answer this question makes Nukid and her sister's concern for their sons not only an individual issue, but a national one.
It's a social time-bomb when one in three children in the country belong to vulnerable and high-risk groups.
Nukid was not exaggerating when she talked about problematic youths in her village. According to Child Watch Project, 5 million out of the country's 15 million young people fall through the cracks in the Bangkok-centred education system that supports only exam-smart students.
The kids with different interests and skills are systematically dumped, and left to rot with their self-esteem in tatters. Their painful alienation often ignites self-destructive, anti-social behaviour.
The Education Ministry, meanwhile, remains resistant to calls for education reform, refusing to tailor curricula to meet students' diverse needs and to allow local schools more financial and managerial flexibility.
Budget wise, schools in the most developed parts of the country still get nearly three times more money than the least developed, perpetuating the urban/rural divide in education quality.
The result: A very high percentage of dropouts. In Thailand's rural areas, the dropout rate is 11% in primary school, 21% at secondary level, and 45% in high school, according to Child Watch.
With an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 vulnerable children in each province, the rise in youth delinquency comes as no surprise.
The number of child offenders rose from 34,211 in 2005 to 46,981 in 2009. The number of unmarried teenage mothers also rose from 42,434 to 67,958 in the same period, making the teen pregnancy rate in Thailand one of the highest in the world.
So what's the cure? Training parents about proper parenting so they can communicate with their kids?
Or should we be equipping kids with better life skills so they can take responsibility for themselves?
Of course, those measures help. But it is difficult to douse the fire engulfing our house with just a few buckets of water.
Nukid knows what she wants for her boy, who is not doing well academically: "I want school to help him find out what he's good at so he can develop that talent, instead of making him feel bad about himself.
"I also want good quality vocational schools that are affordable and free from gang rivalry. I want my boys to have the necessary skills for the job market."
Interestingly, that is also what the country's industries are crying out for _ a strong supply of skilled workers _ and yet the Education Ministry persistently fails to provide it.
"All I wish for my kids is for them to stay safe from social harm, and get jobs when they grow up. Only then can I feel I've done my job as a mother. The odds are long, so I can only keep praying."
Sanitsuda Ekachai is Editorial Pages Editor, Bangkok Post
Ook vandaag gelezen een stukje van een Thaise jongen die zijn moeder had afgeslacht omdat ze vond dat hij teveel computerspelletjes speelde
Angry teen slays his mother
Published: 31/10/2012 at 12:25 PMOnline news:
A 14-year-old boy stabbed his sleeping mother to death and severely injured his sister after he was scolded for spending too much time playing video games, Bangkok police said.
The boy was arrested early Wednesday morning.
Police said he knifed his 45-year-old mother to death on her bed inside a house on Krungthep Kreeta Road in Saphan Sung district of Bangkok.
The police from Prawet police station also found the boy's elder sister seriously wounded at the scene. She was taken to Lat Phrao hospital.
Initial inquiries revealed the boy took up the knife and repeatedly stabbed his mother and sister after he was reproached for being addicted to video games.
According to the police, he stabbed the mother four times in the back while she was sleeping , and then stabbed his sister who was trying to stop him.
The youth will be questioned by the police and then handed into the custody of a youth detention centre.
Zo te lezen hoeftPattaya niet bang te zijn voor een gebrek aan verse aanvoer in de nabije toekomst.