Neeracha Lokunpai (Medkao) No.

12 Class1203

Personal response to an essay

Buddhism and Thai Education, an essay published on ajarn.com, is talked about how
religious, Buddhism, influence the culture and education system. The writer is written from a
viewpoint of the foreigner who comes worked in Thailand as a teacher. S/he point out the
drawback of Thai social structure, history, political system, and believed. The author tries to
not criticize Thailand, but at the same time, the tone of the writing pieces is more likely to
compare Thailand and Western style of education. The following paragraph will be
discussed about the key point that I can pick out from this writing piece.

In paragraph 12, the writer wrote, “Thailand has not been colonised and the
immaturity of its bureaucratic infrastructure has affected the development of the democratic
and educational system.” In my opinion, I strongly disagree. I see that our country is as
developed as our neighbour who has been colonised by the West.

A good example is Burma, a country that has been under the British rule from the
19th century until 1948. Thailand is far more developed infrastructure and over the last few
decades, Thailand has sustained a strong economic growth and has reduced poverty
substantially.

In contrast to Burma, despite many improvements going on, the living standard of a
majority is still the same. Its country remains one of the poorest countries in Asia. In term of
the education system, Thailand has always been concerned about education. The country is
continuously modernising education system which of those are adapted from the Western.
The education ministry is now cooperating with the school over Thailand to make sure that
the system is reaching the standard. To conclude, being under control of great power nation
doesn’t affirm education movement in the controlled country.

Thailand is an opened country. There is no actual state religion which means people
has freedom in their beliefs. However, the main religion for most of Thais is Buddhism. The
aims of Buddhism is the alleviation of suffering. People in Thai are used to the ritual and
gnome since young because the Thai institute tries to put Buddhist studies as one of the
curriculum requirement. There are benefits for the student in many ways. At least the young
are learnt to respect the elderly. Buddhism helps us to be a good people.