“Education for Complete Human Development”
Lamplaimat Pattana School was founded with the objective of demonstrating the possibility of providing a high-quality education to children in rural areas. It is a private school, but is owned by a non-profit organization, the Lamplaimat Pattana Foundation, and does not charge tuition fees; financial support comes mainly from charitable donations. It opened in 2002 and has approximately 240 children enrolled at the kindergarten and primary levels. It does not select children based on ability; instead, a lottery is used when necessary. It is located in a rural part of Buriram province in the North-East of Thailand.
There is a real need for such a school. Thailand has made good progress towards achieving the goal of universal primary and secondary education, with 95% of children attending school. However, quality remains a major problem, particularly in rural areas. The Ministry of Education has recently introduced a new national curriculum, which is aligned with modern educational thinking. However, most schools have found it difficult to change their traditional teaching methods to meet the needs of the new curriculum.
It is important to build skills for imaginative and creative thinking, together with the self-confidence to express that thinking. It is also important to develop positive attitudes and feelings towards learning: it is much more important that children acquire a habit for and love of learning than that they master any particular body of knowledge. Of course, all these higher level skills do depend on a mastery of basic foundational skills, such as reading, writing and arithmetic.
In addition to intellectual skills, the school places great emphasis on developing a range of emotional, social and spiritual qualities that help children to lead happy, fulfilling lives and contribute positively to society. It also tries to ensure that children feel connected to and are proud of their local community and its traditions, so as to encourage them to spend their adult lives in the local community, rather than to migrate to Bangkok.
Another key goal of the school is to ensure that all students, without exception, achieve their full potential. Since the school does not practice selective entry, this requires the school to deal with a broad range of physical, intellectual and behavioral problems.
The school aims not just to provide a quality education to its students, but also to serve as an example that can help other schools improve their quality. It tries therefore to avoid use of resources beyond what could be expected from a government school. It also aims to be consistent with Thailand’s national curriculum.
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