Position of English in Thailand

As the Ministry of Education abandons plans to declare English our second official language, it’s time to realise that learning English by rote has failed. Try talking instead. ‘How do you do?’’ ‘‘I’m fine, thank you. And you?’’ For decades, the Education Ministry has tried to make students speak English naturally rather than memorising all that their teachers tell them in the classroom. That effort goes nowhere and there is nobody to blame except policymakers at the ministry themselves.

Despite the failure to improve English teaching for pupils thus far, the ministry shows no sign of throwing in the towel. A panel was set up this year as part of education reform and it came up with a new idea in July. The panellists wanted to promote English as the other official language of the country, in addition to Thai.
Once English became the second language officially in Thailand, all resources including teachers would be pooled to improve efficient use of the language. Students would eventually be on the receiving end of this benefit and the country as a whole would have more human resources with better Englishspeaking skills.

The rationale is strange enough. But what is weird is the reason Education Minister Chinnaworn Boonyakiat gave to put the brakes on it. After carefully studying the proposal forwarded by the panel, the former most outstanding teacher of Nakhon Si Thammarat decided on Oct 19 to shoot it down. He believed that what was proposed by the panellists would paint Thailand in a negative light.


Countries that have English as an official language normally are ones once colonised by the British. Thailand is not