New normal Thai education system during post-Covid 19

Hundreds of thousands of Thai students as well as teachers have adapted to the new normal following the Covid 19 pandemic and the July 1 re-opening of schools.

Big schools, each with 1,000 or more students, have split their classes into two groups. Half of the class which averages 50 students in total, go to school physically, say, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, while the other half distance-learn from home via online devices. Then, the latter group go to physical classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday in the following week, while the former group stay home and distance-learn, and so on.

So far, the situation appears to be fine with large secondary schools in Bangkok and major provinces, even though parents have to spend more on tablets and/or other computer devices as well as home wifi connectivity. According to Lenovo, more than 1.2 billion students and learners worldwide have been hit hard by the Covid 19 pandemic, which prompted virtually all school closures since March this year.

Such a worldwide disruption to regular schooling and student experiences is unprecedented, prompting governments and school administrators to find ways to meet the new challenges. The top priority in Thailand was to build and deploy distance-learning programs quickly at scale since Thailand’s regular school calendar starts in mid-May.

The re-opening date was however postponed to July 1 to allow the government and school administrators to prepare for a safe re-opening in which mask-wearing, social distancing, avoidance of large crowds, and hand washing are mandatory.

To facilitate distance-learning for students who stay home, administrators have worked a wide range of technology companies to develop and deploy new tools. Lenovo, Microsoft, and Cisco are among the key players chosen to provide secured platforms to engage students with compelling and effective digital learning contents as well as to enable teachers to support their students’ distance learning needs.

To comply with the Thai government’s requirement on social distancing, large schools with over 1,000 students accommodate only half of their regular classes physically. As a result, teachers need to broadcast the classroom contents to the other half of students who distance-learn at home. This arrangement is fine with older kids in secondary schools but it is preferable for primary school students to go to school physically, albeit in a smaller class size of around 30.

To better facilitate the new normal of schooling, Lenovo said it has developed a new classroom management software as well as so-called creativity apps for Chromebook so that students can create videos, podcasts, notes, art, books and screencasts on their devices. On security, there are new anti—virus and other features for endpoint, cloud, and IoT while teachers are better enabled via social learning and other experiences.

In addition, there are online libraries, educational collaboration tools, customized teacher professional development webinars, among others.

Overall, the Covid 19 pandemic has effectively accelerated the pace of online education and distance-learning worldwide, with many Thai schools currently attempting to ensure that students as well as teachers and other personnel are safe while the breadth and depth of learning is managed as best as possible amid the unprecedented public health challenge.