On the first day of military boot camp last month, 17-year-old vocational student Nattapol “Bird” Suwannaphong was expecting an easy ride. Nattapol was a guinea pig in a pilot programme which forces students to attend military camp as part of the government’s efforts to end violence between rival technical college students.
Ready to rumble: Pathum Thani Technology students nabbed by Bang Khen police on a bus while on their way to fight with rival students. Police seized guns, machetes and axes.
“When I signed up for this camp, I thought it was a good chance for me to get away from home,” Nattapol, a student at Samutprakarn Polytechnic College, told Spectrum when training started on Nov 13.
“We will basically be doing nothing but hanging out, sleeping and goofing around all day. I don’t think it will help much in terms of stopping us fighting since I don’t see anything relevant to that.”
Nattapol showed up with 80 students at the Chumpol Naval Rating School in Sattahip, Chon Buri, on the morning the pilot programme started.
Both males and females from three different colleges in Samut Prakan province were chosen because of the area’s reputation for brawling among students. Attending the training was part of their course requirements.
Initially, 97 students registered to attend the boot camp from Samutprakarn Technical College, Kanchanapisek Samutprakarn Technical College and Samutprakarn Polytechnic College. But before the training started, 16 had withdrawn, leaving 70 males and 11 females to undertake 25 days of training, with the course ending on Dec 7.
The first shock for Nattapol and the other young men was a military crew-cut, while the women were required to tie their hair neatly in a bun.
The second was an address from Education Minister Admiral Narong Pipatanasai, a former navy commander who laid out the objectives of the training to the assembled students. He said it was designed to correct the students’ attitudes and aggressive behaviour and instil discipline and harmony among students from different vocational colleges.
He predicted that after training from navy officers the students would come out with changed attitudes and more self discipline and inter-school brawling would be reduced. Violence between technical school students has become commonplace because of inter-school rivalry. On Sept 12, two Pathumwan Institute of Technology students were shot dead while riding a motorbike, while several students from Rajamangala University of Technology Rattanakosin students were seriously injured during a shoot-out on a train the same day.
What makes the vocational student “boot camp” different from previous ones is that it is a compulsory course requirement run by the navy. Similar boot camps had been conducted by the army before, but only for students identified as being part of the violence.
If it is implemented in full, all first-year students at all vocational colleges will be required to take the course.
Another change is that after the May 22 coup, the courses are under the direct control of an education minister who is also a senior military figure.
Spectrum tracked the progress of the students and the reactions of the trainers and organisers to try and see if this social engineering experiment was a success.
“We are always ready to rip each other apart,” Abhisit Sa-in, a 17-year-old student from Samutprakarn Technical College, told Spectrum on the second day of training. “Even if there is three months training, it won’t change how we are when we go back to school.”
Stepping into line: Students at the boot camp are woken early for exercise, lectures, marching and studying.
FALL INTO LINE
Despite many of the students’ initial scepticism about the training, their lives were about to change dramatically.
From the first day, trainees were required to wear standard dress comprising black track pants and an orange polo shirt and black cap.
They were mixed in with the regular navy college students, who acted as their mentors and role models. The navy students woke the vocational college pupils at 5.30am every day. They were given 10 minutes to brush their teeth, wash their face and line up in front of the commander’s building.
A physical trainer then led them in morning exercises of jogging and swimming. Breakfast was from 7-8am, but the students had to clean up after themselves and be ready for a national flag-raising ceremony at 8am.
From then until 4.30pm they attended classes at which military values and personal development were taught.
The activities included marching, singing military songs, leadership, learning knots and splices and national pride. The students also received instruction in the vocational college courses they had applied for.
After classes, the students were required to exercise from 4.30-6.30pm. This was followed by dinner and one hour of evening classes before lights out at 9pm.
The head of the naval college, Rear Admiral Bundit Suda, was also the main instructor of the vocational students.
He said when they first arrived, they acted like children. They did not want to attend the courses, did not pay attention in class and were homesick. But after the first week, the trainers used the same technique they did with the naval rating students to try to get them to participate, Rear Adm Bundit said.
“They were not disciplined on the first day,” he said. “They wanted to do what they liked. After the first week passed, they became a lot better.
“We had to use a lot of physiological techniques on them and we had to make sure that we didn’t intimidate them with military rules,” he added.
But on occasions discipline was used to bring the students into line. When Spectrum visited the camp, some of the students were having lunch with their trainers and the navy recruits.
Everyone was sitting bolt upright in their chairs with none of them resting against the backs of their chairs. No one talked during the meal; they all displayed good table manners. For any transgressions, such as talking while eating, the trainers ordered them to do 10 push-ups on the spot.
Once lunch was finished the students lined up in their colour-coded groups of pink, orange, green and blue, designated by a boy scout-type scarf around the neck. They marched from the canteen in an orderly fashion to their next training session, and it was hard to distinguish them from the regular recruits.
Towards the end of the training, the vocational students were mixed with the regular recruits at the naval school, undergoing the same training and activities.
The budget for the 25-day training course, calculated at 500 baht per head per day, came to 1,012,500 baht.
In detention: Brawling vocational school students caught with a variety of weapons. The boot camp project aims to put an end to violence between students.
BUILDING A BETTER MAN
Mongkolchai Punoi, 17, from Samutprakarn Technical College, went to boot camp with the same teenage cynicism as his peers.
The only reason he attended was because it was compulsory if he wanted to graduate from his course and become a car mechanic.
“I thought this would be like a long vacation,” he said. “I didn’t think it would help much in terms of behaviour and changing my attitude.”
But by the end of the course, the trainers had chosen Mongkolchai as a group leader, supervising other students and acting as their representative.
He said that before the camp, he would typically wake up at 7pm and go to college at 8pm. After school he would hang around with friends, until he went home and did his homework. He would then spend the rest of the evening on the internet or playing online games. He hardly fitted the profile of a troublemaker.
But after the military induction he says he has more direction in life, rising earlier every day, going to bed earlier and taking more responsibility for his actions and appearance.
“My parents came to visit me at the camp and they told me I had changed a lot,” Mongkolchai said. “My mother said I looked a lot smarter and I had better manners.” He said he will continue with the new regime in his everyday life as he likes the person he has become.
“I still wake up early, just like when I was in the camp,” he said. “I help my parents with the housework and manage to study before bedtime every night.”
He has even decided what he wants to do with his life. “I want to join the navy,” he said. “I asked permission from my parents to enrol in the naval rating school two years after I graduate from Samutprakarn Technical College, and my parents agreed.” He is keen to return to the camp as a real recruit the next time.
Under orders: From above to bottom, vocational school students receive instructions on various subjects, and have to behave during meals.
CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM
Capt Yutthasak Charuensap, the navy officer with overall authority over the project at the camp, believes the pilot programme has been successful in adjusting the students’ behaviour and attitude. He said it was up to them to apply what they have learned in their lives. “We have started everything for them,” Capt Yutthasak said. “Now it is the school which has to carry on what we have started.”
He said the navy and the three vocational colleges will now assess the success of the pilot programme and decide if changes need to be made to make the project “sustainable and permanent”.
The Ministry of Education told Spectrum it will expand the project to vocational colleges in Bangkok and surrounding provinces next year. By 2016, it plans to take the programme national. It has not been decided if the navy or other sections of the military will be involved.
Capt Yutthasak said if strong values are instilled in the students, they will be able to stand up to other students trying to lead them astray.
“The kids we had are like a piece of clean, white fabric. They will be whatever we painted for them. If we train them well, they won’t be influenced by their seniors at school,” he added.
Capt Yutthasak was reluctant to label the pilot programme a total success, but is confident it will have positive results in the long term.
“There will be no change yet since we just started this project, but if we train one generation after another, they will know better not to fight each other as it is senseless. Eventually the inter-school fighting culture will end,” Capt Yutthasak predicted.
For students such as Nattapol, from Samutprakarn Polytechnic, life has largely returned to normal after boot camp.
“The camp gave me more discipline and patience,” he said. “I wake up early every day and never miss morning class. I am doing better things at school and I’m more concerned about the school’s reputation,” he added.
He says his attitude to fighting has also changed, but only slightly. While he tries to avoid fighting with other schools, there are still occasions when he can’t control himself.
“I try to avoid fighting because I know better, but those stupid people won’t stop,” he said. “I don’t plan to do anything yet, but fighting back may not be a bad thing if we want to show them that we are not weak.”
Nattapol is not the only one who believes his actions are determined by the actions of others. Aunchita “Som” Thatawong, 17, from Samutprakarn Technical College, was one of 11 girls who attended the boot camp. “It’s true, boot camp changed all of us for the better,” she said. “But people who did not attend the camp still remain unchanged.”
She told Spectrum that on her way home from school last week she stopped at a stationery store in a shopping mall near her college. When she was leaving the mall eight students from another school tried to pick a fight with her.
“They all surrounded me and wanted to attack me,” Aunchita said. “I told them I didn’t want to get involved. After a while they let me go without touching me since I showed no sign that I wanted to retaliate.
“I was scared and I don’t want to get in trouble. I know I can try and avoid the situation, but this whole fighting thing will never stop.” n