ONGOING POLICY REFORM IN THAILAND’S INITIAL TEACHER EDUCATION CURRICULUM: INCOMPLETE POLICY BORROW

This article reports on a review of Initial Teacher Education in Thailand’s Rajabhat universities conducted in 2016/17 and the subsequent national initial teacher education curriculum reform drawing on the review’s findings and recommendations. The research was conducted in three interconnected phases. The first included a review of secondary data made available by the sample Rajabhat universities (n=5) and the Thai Ministry of Education. Phase two included a period of fieldwork in Thailand during which the research team collected data from officers of the Ministry of Education (n=6), university senior managers (n=38), initial teacher education course leaders and academic staff (n=54) and student teachers’ (n~125). During the final phase of the research the research team liaised with a series of Thai stakeholders (e.g. the Teachers’ Council of Thailand) to confirm maters of accuracy and disentangle local custom and practice from national policy. A key recommendation of the research was to consider reducing the length of the undergraduate route into teaching and ensure trainee teachers spent time in school in each on the four years of their course. Since the report policy changes have been implemented across Thailand’s initial teacher education landscape including the recommended reduction in initial teacher education course length from five to four years in March 2019.