Four years have now passed since the Covid-19 pandemic spread across the world, impacting almost every aspect of people's daily lives. Education is one of the sectors that have been most dramatically affected by these changes.
In Thailand, so many young children, especially those from socially and economically disadvantaged backgrounds, are more likely to experience difficulties in their education due to inequities in access to technology. These children along with their teachers and parents had to suddenly adapt to new ways of learning and accessing educational resources.
Concerned about Thai students' well-being, and aiming to drive a sustainable tomorrow, UOB in co-operation with Thailand Collaboration for Education (TCFE) rolled out UOB My Digital Space (MDS), a multi-year regional flagship education programme in order to bridge the digital gap for children from disadvantaged backgrounds across the region and to connect them to a world of digital learning opportunities.
"With the pandemic challenging and changing traditional ways of learning, UOB My Digital Space programme was introduced to offer support to disadvantaged children across the region since 2020," said Sanchai Apisaksirikul, managing director and country head of Finance, Corporate Real Estate Services and Project Management Office, UOB Thailand.
"At UOB, our corporate purpose is to build the future of Asean; we support the social development of the community through three pillars -- art, children and education -- as these are essential for the quality and progress of society. So, we believe this programme will equip them with the essentials for their digital learning journey now and into the future."
Equipping children with digital learning tools and skills is crucial in today's rapidly advancing and technology-driven landscape. MDS provides children and young people with the skills to improve their prospects and safeguard their well-being. Not only providing devices, MDS also aims to address challenges by providing a comprehensive suite of digital learning from hardware to software, plus life skills to prepare children for the future. Computer rooms, digital learning on basic subjects for O-NET, and UOB Money 101 financial literacy will be provided to schools under the TCFE programme, with Teach for Thailand to improve teacher's capability also in the pipeline.
"In the MDS programme, we bring in two additional functions to the school. One, complete computer equipment replenishment that is ready for learning management; and two, adding digital courses in various subjects including science, mathematics and English, for teachers to use. These courses are online systems that students will be able to study together with friends in the classroom," explained Kanokwan Chowsri, director of the Collaboration for Good Society, Yuvabadhana Foundation, which is part of TCFE.
"Children can also log in and go back to review lessons by themselves at home. And for English, there are exercises that are designed to be as entertaining such as playing a scoring game. In addition, teachers can manage their classrooms by viewing student assignment reports and grades online."
According to the Equitable Education Fund, back in 2020, child poverty between the ages of six to 17 meant that 1,137,539 children were outside the educational system.
"There are many students who have to drop out of school to help earn money, or struggle with other problems as a result of being poor. Some of the kids aren't living with their parents, leading to a lack of advice. There is also another group of children who did not have adequate equipment and internet connection during the time when kids had to study online during Covid," said Kanokwan.
"When this group of children returned to school as usual, they encountered a learning loss problem and were unable to keep up with their peers. This is an example of why poverty has such a big impact on children's educational success. And if there is no project or system to help, this group of children is at risk of not being able to study at all."
The importance of adopting technology in teaching is equal to the importance of organisations adapting technology in their work. The Thai education system is responsible for developing the country's personnel and should adapt accordingly. Of course, we will see schools with more resources such as private schools able to adopt technology faster than less-resourced schools such as small public schools.
The MDS programme has reached out by bringing tools and digital curricula into participating schools. Most are public schools with less than 800 students at the junior high level. They aren't big schools but they want to improve the quality of education. So far, the selection of schools for the programme is based on the O-NET scores in maths, science and English, and focuses particularly on schools with scores below the national average.
Kanokwan believes that apart from helping to develop student proficiency, the MDS programme will also improve teacher capacity as well.
"Because the courses we add are all digital, teachers themselves will have to adjust their styles and develop their own skills using technology. The project will provide online training for teachers in new schools to use the system effectively," she said.
"And we have a learning model called 'blended learning', where teachers provide instruction that combines online content with other teaching methods such as lecturing, lab experiments, exercises, etc, which makes the online content deployment adaptable to the context of each grade level.
"We maintain the same quality online content standards across all schools that use it. Our online content is based on the central curriculum of the Ministry of Education. In addition, teachers can manage the classroom by viewing the exercises and scores of students online which will make it easier to track student performances."
Even though the world has been rapidly changing and technology has become an important part of various industries including education, technology and digital teaching are unlikely to be a complete replacement for human teachers anytime soon, especially for junior high or younger level students who still want to learn in an interactive format. There is still the need for interaction and asking questions in class.
Teachers still have to observe students' reactions and adjust teaching to suit the context of each classroom. Therefore, this should be a time when both human teachers and technology have different advantages and complement each other for the best benefits and well-being of all Thai children.
This article is part of a 20-part series that explores what it takes to create and secure a sustainable future. In collaboration with UOB. You can view the whole series here.
