The school of the 21st century should be a "learning community" in which every child has equal access, according to education specialist Nipaporn Kunlasomboon.
Ms Nipaporn, who works for event organiser Pico (Thailand) Plc, said schools worldwide need to reform through a vision called School as a Learning Community (SLC). This involves all teachers in a school observing and sharing a lesson together to create a listening pedagogy and embrace and develop diversity of learning in each teacher and student, to provide high-quality education.
"The school as a learning community is a school where students learn together, teachers also learn together as professionals, and even parents learn together," she said.
The SLC concept was created by Manabu Sato, emeritus professor of the University of Tokyo, in the 1990s and has been studied by educators and researchers worldwide.
According to the theory, every child's right to learn is realised and the importance of professional teacher development and progressive social democracy are also stressed.
This pairs up students during the first and second grades in primary school, and sets up small groups for them to work together in later years during primary, middle, and high school. The groups should be a mix of gender, ability, cultural and social backgrounds.
This approach would stress the sharing of ideas, she added.
SLC also encouraged teachers to work together on lesson planning, teaching and observation.
The idea would encourage teachers to be thoughtful and reflective professionals in a democratic school structure.
Today, about 1500 elementary schools, 2000 junior secondary schools and 300 senior secondary schools are attempting to reform themselves from within, according to this idea, and forming a grassroots network. About 300 pilot schools are active as leading agents for such innovation.
Recently, the movement for establishing the “school as learning community” has spread its wings to Asian countries, including Korea, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam as well as Thailand.
In Thailand, three elementary schools — Wat Mai Krathum Lom School, Buddhajak Wittaya School, and Satit Pattana School — have adopted this approach for 18 months.
“What we have observed from these schools is that both students and teachers are happier. The 21st century skills such as creativity, inquiry and collaboration of students participated in pilot schools have been improved,” Ms Nipaporn said.
Ms Niparporn said the programme should start to show results in three years, and by then she hoped more Thai schools would follow suit.
