Thai teachers TV launched to boost skills

Teachers can now count on Thai Teachers TV to boost their abilities and skills. -The Nation/ANN

Mon, Jul 12, 2010
The Nation/Asia News Network

Thai Teachers TV has been on air on Thai PBS from Monday to Friday since April 1. It is broadcast twice daily between 5.45am and 6am, and from 3.45pm to 4pm. If teachers are not free to watch TV during those times, they need not worry. The content is available 24 hours a day, and seven days a week on http://www.thaiteachers.tv/

Thai Teachers TV seeks to inspire teachers about how to engage their students in lessons and how to integrate new techniques, not necessarily with IT tools, into their class activities.

Currently, 70 per cent of its content is series from the United Kingdom's Teachers TV (TTV), which was launched five years ago to great success. The rest is based on local content, relying on inspiring teachers in Thailand.

Burapha University's Faculty of Education is the main agency tasked with preparing content for Thai Teachers TV under a project sponsored by the Office of the Higher Education Commission.

This project has received a Bt1.1 bil-lion budget over a three-year timeframe.

The Thai Teachers TV channel and its associated website are designed to raise educational standards through the continuous professional development of everyone who works in schools.

Main target groups are teachers, trainee teachers and teacher trainers.

The Thai Teachers TV project offers huge resources for teachers to improve their abilities. Through this project, they will be able to observe how their fellow professionals work and strive towards greater achievement.

Because the programmes can be downloaded from a website, teachers have the convenience of selecting only relevant content and viewing it in their free time. Head teachers can also use the programmes to discuss how their subordinates should improve their teaching.

This is invaluable. Individual teachers have traditionally been isolated in the classroom with limited opportunities to observe practice in other classrooms and schools.

Most teachers in the UK have report-ed that online programmes or offline videos of learning and teaching episodes are being used to stimulate staff discussion and illustrate tech-niques to colleagues - but individuals can also watch in their own homes and if necessary, look for new ideas and solutions to teaching problems without having to raise them with colleagues.

Research findings show that TTV channel has really helped lift the per-formance and abilities of teachers. They also suggest that school leaders or head teachers have played an important role in promoting TTV to implement and put forward the best practices in school.

In Thailand, Thai Teachers TV is now trying to follow in the footsteps of TTV.

Let's hope this initiative will comple-ment the country's ongoing educational reform, which vows to put emphasis on teachers' quality based on a belief that under the guidance of efficient teachers, children will naturally excel and have a great chance of maximising their potential.

I would like to encourage all teachers and all educators to check out the Thai Teachers TV. As the slogan of this proj-ect goes, they all need to be "Professional Teachers, Not Just Someone With a Teaching Profession". -The Nation/ANN