When you live a country where the 15-day closure of tutorial schools makes front-page news, you realise that something's very wrong.

No, it's not the swine-flu pandemic and our reaction to it that makes this wrong, it's the fact that tutorial schools have become so important in our country's education system. It's been known for many years now that most Thai students and their parents believe that these tutorial schools are their only ticket to a bright future. As for schoolteachers, who come under the Education Ministry, they have been complaining that they don't make enough in their regular jobs and need to supplement their income through tutorial schools. So several students end up studying with the same teacher in two different schools, where the same lesson is taught in two different ways.

In normal schools, teachers stick to the curriculum prescribed by the ministry, while in the tutorial schools they teach their students how to make it into university, a subject that seems to be very important to most students and parents.

To solve this problem, and perhaps to ease the weekend traffic jams near Siam Square where most tutorial schools are located, many normal schools are now offering their own tutoring sessions in the evenings, weekends and semester breaks. Many of them are making it mandatory for all students to take these classes, and charging them for it, of course. After all, normal schools can't charge students for regular classes.

However, the teachers don't earn too much for these extra classes and invariably try to get out of it. As for the students, they much prefer watching celebrity tutors on the TV screens inside overcrowded tutorial schools.

So when one sees the younger generation spending all their leisure time studying, instead of extracurricular activities such as sport and arts, just to get accepted at a prestigious school or university, one realises that something is wrong with the country's education system. One wonders what these students are really taught in schools that they are so unprepared for the next level.

Meanwhile, the Education Ministry has announced that it is spending Bt12 billion on seven to 10 universities provided they prove their research calibre. Sadly, this story never made the front pages despite this huge amount of the taxpayers' money involved.

One good reason to cheer this is that the outcome of new research can actually contribute to the development of the country, and a not so commendable purpose is that it will boost these institutions' world rankings.

Actually, the first purpose might not be that good either. If you read between the lines and see professors spending more time writing project proposals instead of preparing for their classes, you will discover that the only projects to be accepted are those that can play a significant part in the country's development. Sadly, no funds will be allocated for arts and humanities, though that's not the reason behind this column.

We are becoming increasingly obsessed with rankings, and the reason is simple: it's the quickest way to judge or evaluate something. However, when you compare results from different polls, you'll be surprised at how diverse they are, simply because they use different criteria. Some agencies even offer consulting services to boost these rankings, for a fee of course, and even though technology has made it easier for us to probe deeply and find all the faults, often times we are just satisfied with the numbers and not the words explaining them.

When looking for graduate programmes overseas, many students, encouraged by parents who pay their tuition fees even at the graduate level, first look at the university rankings, instead of the curriculum, the specialisation of the faculty and how these suit their career goals. As a result, despite being given the opportunity to choose something that specifically suits them, students end up going for the dressing so that they, and their parents, can later brag about it.

As far as I can remember, education still means teaching and studying, not research, though that still plays a key role in education. Hence, a university's goal should be to churn out graduates, not research projects, because it is the graduates who are the future of the country. Sadly, many universities are judged by the number of research papers they put in international journals--which is, like box-office numbers, easier to count--instead of the quality of their graduates.

Many of my senior colleagues have made a name, not for doing exceptional research, but for simply teaching well. They are not just transmitting information to students, but teaching them how to think on their own. They always have time for their pupils, not just for subjects on the curriculum but also other issues. I also know many people whose research has bagged national awards, yet students can never remember their names.

With this mega-project going ahead, I will probably hear more colleagues, who can apparently remember the deadline for research-grant submissions but not their students' names, telling their class: "Sorry I don't have time to discuss this: I need to do some research. Would you like to help? The pay is quite good, and the experience will prepare you for graduate studies. Oh, and it's part of the national agenda."

This is quite similar to the current situation, where teachers are not teaching what they should and the students are not learning what they should.

Given this, perhaps 5 per cent of the huge allocation should be spent on studying Thailand's schooling system and another 45 per cent on developing it so we can guarantee that the 30 to 35 hours of classes per week that students and teachers spend in school are worthwhile.

Or is this one of the many mega-projects that every Thai government needs to come up with to prove that it is doing its job properly? If so, then this too will fizzle out, just as the Bt30 medical benefit has forced many doctors to go into private hospitals and overseas scholarships have been wasted on students who have returned home after a few months abroad.

It's about time our government stopped spending for publicity purposes and being obsessed with rankings. In this age of technology, the public should not simply admire the glossy posters and all the other sugar coating, but instead look for the truth.

written by Pawit Mahasarinand

publsihed in THE NATION on Saturday, July 18, 2009