School spending and results.

Nowadays, learning in school is a typical way of education in our society. In Thailand, the government supports student to study until high school. A class with 40 pupils is a normal size in any city. Thai school funded by government. The private school also has a partly support. Recently, education ministry took the biggest part of budget.

According to an article about cash to support school in the UK. The researchers tried to find out whether there is any relevant of money supporting in school and student’s achievement. The government agrees that there are reasons why two neighbouring schools demand for different amount of money such as their building maintenance, campus facilities and staffing cost. The government concluded that they just have to deal with different circumstances and those spending more do not always do better. In research, the economists cannot find a significant relation between school’s spending and student’s test performance. Only teacher’s salary seems to be the reliable factor effects test results and it correlates with higher national income countries.

I do agree that teachers’ higher salary will affect results in education. In my experience, I had studied in government school since I was in kindergarden. The difference from other schools is that schools which I studied have their good academic reputation. There are factors that these schools share in common such as middle-class student background, high numbers of experience teachers and having their secure extra funding. I believe that not only teacher is the important factor but also combination of others. I entered a science middle school. The school has its good laboratory with lots of experience teachers. It is the best school I have ever learned. We have a smaller class than normal Thai school and encouraging teachers. As a result, the school has its high academic records. To keep their standard of teaching, the school has paid more to attract qualified staffs. Moreover, students have to pay more than normal public school. In other words, Thai government didn’t pay well enough for teachers. Teacher’s income in Thailand is far more less than other professions. We cannot avoid the truth that Thai students wish to get into other professions. Most reputation schools are willing to invest more on their teachers, have their own fund and require extra fee to pay. That’s why they can have good facilities, devoted teaching staffs and educated families. According to these, results are not a coincidence.

However, the research is based on academic results. There are other aspect of achievement. What about their life in society? Are they concerned of others? Are they happy? Do they follow their passion of subject? We have a better education while the violent crime and stress community have been growing together. The idea of spending money on education probably not only the real solution to get better results for future friendly living community. For example, the country continues having high rate in teenage pregnancy, depression and suicidal attempt. People take money into account in life more than we usually do in the past. A lot of teenagers prefer imported brand, sweets and foreign cuisines than Thai shop. A way of independent life will hurt our traditional families if we have not paused a while.

In spite of not improving moral society, I still insist that higher fund to school has to be considered. Including ways to make students realize of their individual ability to achieve in life not in the test result. On the other hands, children spend a long time in school that’s why we should pay for a good role model teacher and spend more in their training.

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References

Baker, M. (2011, January 13). Does cash get results in schools? BBC news. Retrieved January 17, 2011 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12176305