Teach For Thailand

Build the next generation leaders through 2-year experience to drive the mission of education equity across Thailand.

In 2040, we want all children in communities across all regions in Thailand to have the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and opportunities that enable them to shape a meaningful future for themselves and their families as well as to become justice-oriented citizens within their communities. Thailand’s education suffers from problems of quality and equity at the moment. The education gap will only continue to widen as more and more students from disadvantaged schools are dropping out. To solve these problems, Teach For Thailand recruits and develops talented individuals to teach in underserved schools and work in partnership with local communities for a period of two years. Students are thereby provided with an enhanced education that will allow them to shape a better future for themselves and those around them. In turn, through their 2 years’ experience, participants understand the root causes in Thai education and gain the foundation for a lifetime of leadership. Post the 2-year program, they would then go on to become key figures in both public and private sectors (e.g., government/policy, school leadership and social innovation/NGO), which together would collectively transform the Thai education system for the better.

According to a study conducted by the Equitable Education Fund, at least 2.6 million children have disappeared from Thailand's education system in just 11 years. The decline in the number of students in the education system is a result of the fact that each year, an increasing number of children drop out of the basic education system. The study also discovered that access to education and the opportunity to enroll in the compulsory education system are directly proportional to the child's family's economic status. Additionally, teaching is not the most popular career choice for gifted individuals. Coupled with the fact that some families do not support their children to be in school because they do not understand the benefit of education,  students in Thailand do not have equal access to a high-quality education. In 2019, only 70.4 percent of children aged 12-16 are enrolled in school, implying that nearly one third of middle school Thai students are not receiving the education they deserve.

We only work with high-needs schools where they need us the most and where we can make the most impact. These schools must have failing average ONET (Thai national exam) scores, lack of teachers in one of our three key subjects (English, Maths, and Science), and high willingness from school principals to transform the school together, one classroom at a time. We look for talented individuals (recent graduates or mid-career changers) aged 22-30+ who want to gain first-hand experience and gain a better understanding of the root cause of our education crisis. These individuals come from a variety of educational backgrounds (STEM, Economics, Literature, etc). They will have the opportunity to teach students aged 12-15 (grades 7-9), the most vulnerable groups, during their two years with the program. Our program allows students to benefit from a more comprehensive education and our fellows to develop the necessary leadership skills and go on to become prominent figures in both the public and private sectors.

We expand equitable access to high-quality learning opportunities through open-source, offline, or virtual models, with a particular emphasis on underserved learners in low-tech environments. Additionally, we assist educators, school leaders, and other system stakeholders by providing access to adaptive learning management systems, tools for personalized instruction, and opportunities for professional development and training. In the short term (two years), our fellows apply their creativity to make the best use of scarce resources and adapt teaching models to each unique context. Additionally, our fellows collaborate with community stakeholders to advance collective efforts in education reform. In the long run, our fellows will gain a better understanding of what is happening on the ground and will be guided toward careers in our prioritized pathway, where they can work collaboratively to bring about the most sustainable change possible in the direction of equitable education.

CEO of Teach For Thailand: Vichitapol Pholpoke

Our leadership development process benefits a variety of stakeholders, including students and fellows. Additionally, we successfully completed our Community Selection Pilot project in Chiangmai this year, in which community members such as parents, teachers, community leaders, and students chose fellows for Cohort 8 who they believe are the best fit for their community. We hope to expand this initiative to additional communities in the near future. This model is not only sustainable, but it also enables us to engage and raise awareness among a broader group of people, showing them how they can contribute to a better education system and how that system will benefit them in the future.

We have tested our solutions and we have had fellows working in schools across Thailand since 2012. Before they start teaching in schools, each of our fellows would have to go through 10 weeks of intensive training to learn everything they need in order to help improve the classrooms. To measure the impact of our solution, we have students take pre- and post-test to compare the results and understand the effectiveness of our teaching method academically. We also conduct attitude tests with our students to see whether our fellows could improve the students' mindsets and skills, which is are very important factors to help them succeed in the future. We also keep track of our alumni once they finished the 2 years program to make sure that our program help bring more talented individual to the educational industry and creating impact to the students sustainably.

In recent years, our organization has operated primarily through the use of basic technology, as our staff works from home and our teachers teach online as a result of Covid-19. We have been operating at the headquarters using emails, shared drives, chats, and virtual meetings for nearly a year now. Our talented acquisition team recruited online, utilizing a variety of methods, including online applications, phone calls, and virtual interviews. Our training program has also relied on virtual meetings to train and prepare our new fellows for their first semester of teaching in November 2021. Our fellows who are currently working in schools have been able to teach through the use of online tools such as Google meet, Zoom, and Facebook. To reach students who do not have access to the internet, our fellows employ the on-hand technique, which entails handing out assignments and following up with phone calls. Additionally, we tracked our alumni and their career paths to assess our success and impact on our country's education system. We collect data on all of our activities and work year after year to improve our program.

Thailand’s education suffers from problems of quality and equity. By the age of 15, the average Thai student is two academic years behind the global average. Thailand ranked 55th out of the 70 countries that administered the OECD’s PISA exams, significantly behind developing country peers such as Vietnam, which ranked 22nd. Moreover, there is a significant performance gap between affluent and low-income schools, with students in disadvantaged schools placing, on average, 3.8 academic years behind their affluent counterparts. This gap will only continue to widen as students from disadvantaged schools are 10 times less likely to pursue higher education as a result of their socio-economic circumstances. Teach For Thailand is a driving force behind a network of leaders who will work to ensure equitable educational opportunities for all children in Thailand. We do this by recruiting and developing talented individuals to teach in economically challenged schools and work in partnership with communities for a period of two years. Students are thereby provided with an enhanced education that will allow them to shape a better future for themselves and those around them. In turn, participants gain the foundation for a lifetime of leadership for the benefit of children.

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We have annual recruitment targets and rely on our recruitment process and tools to select qualified candidates from the thousands of applications we receive. We track the number of people who began the online application, completed it, selected to participate in the program, and accepted the offers. Additionally, we investigate applicants' educational backgrounds and GPAs using Scaleforce, a Customer Relationship Management System, to ascertain their experience and impression of the recruiting process. Additionally, we use Teach For America-developed scoring rubrics to identify applicants who possess characteristics that would benefit Thai students in our country's context. The measurement indicator in this process is the final number of fellows that pass our selection process. 

In terms of impact on students, we compare pre- and post-test scores to determine the effect of our fellowship program. Additionally, we administer attitude tests and conduct surveys to solicit feedback from students. We use Teach For America's "Teaching as Leadership Framework" to assess fellows' self-development during their time with us. We conduct surveys of school principals and staff, as well as community members, to ascertain their satisfaction with our fellows and program.

We track our returning fellows year to year and their career paths following their two-year Teach For Thailand program. Additionally, we collaborate with the Teach For All network to collect data on the number of students benefited by our fellows and alumni.

Over the next five years, we want to prioritize impact by delving deeply into each province with which we are currently engaged. We want to go beyond the classroom, which means we want to engage stakeholders in their communities (school principles, teachers, parents, and community leaders). Additionally, we want to increase the number of fellows we recruit by 10% – 20% per year, from the current 60. As a result, we hope to recruit an additional 80 fellows next year, bringing our total to 20,000 students per year. By 2024, we hope to recruit an additional 115 fellows; by 2026, we hope to recruit 160 fellows. To accomplish this, we must establish a sustainable foundation, for which we intend to partner with the public and private sectors on an international, national, and local level. Additionally, we want to diversify our funding sources, which include foundations, corporations, the public, individuals, through mass giving campaigns. Finally, we are developing a marketing strategy to help us develop our image and eventually become a household name with a strong brand (>80% have heard of Teach For Thailand, >60% understand what Teach For Thailand does, and >50% see value in Teach For Thailand) in order to recruit the best talent, and importantly, raise awareness about the education.

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Regarding talent acquisition, we believe that there are numerous talented individuals who are unaware of our program. We began working with a professional marketing agency this year and plan to increase our marketing investment to broaden our reach and attract the talent we require from across the country. On the technology front, we are investigating low-tech solutions to assist in resolving the education crisis, as we operate in extremely underserved communities across the country. Along with the on-hand technique we have been using, we have had our fellows collaborate with Darsel to develop a Chatbot to assist students with limited data access in learning math via Facebook Messenger. Once established, this Chatbot can be used in all Thai schools. Additionally, we are working to ensure our financial stability by diversifying our funding sources to include public sectors and mass giving. We hired a special public-sector advisor this year, and he has secured several collaborations with public agencies. Additionally, we will collaborate closely with the marketing agency to craft a thoughtful end-of-year mass giving campaign in order to raise additional funds.

When our CEO was in high school, he was given the opportunity to tutor a friend. Although his friend was labeled as a "not very bright" student by others, our CEO discovered that his friend was quite the opposite. Our CEO learned from this experience that anyone, if given the opportunity, can benefit from education. However, the issue in our country is that not everyone has equal opportunity. After learning about Teach For America and discovering that he was ineligible as a Thai citizen, he founded Teach For Thailand in 2012 as a member organization of the Teach For All global network of 60 countries with the mission of resolving substandard quality and inequality in Thai education through the assimilation and training of next-generation leaders to collectively transform Thai education. By 2040, we want children in communities across Thailand to possess the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and opportunities necessary to shape a meaningful future for themselves and their families, as well as to develop into justice-oriented citizens. We work exclusively with high-needs schools in areas where we can have the greatest impact. These schools must have below-average ONET (Thai national exam) scores, a teacher shortage in one of our three core subjects (English, Mathematics, or Science), and a strong commitment by school principals to collaboratively transform the school, one classroom at a time.

We currently have 19 full-time staff and 2 contractors.

Our CEO is a true believer in our approach to resolving Thailand's education crisis. He is aided and abetted by a group of exceptionally talented Senior Leadership Team members. For instance, our head of the Program team, who is responsible for training fellows, previously taught at Roongaroon school, one of Thailand's most progressive schools in Thailand. Our special external relations consultant comes from a political background and maintains contacts in both the public and private sectors. Other members of the Senior Leadership Team come from diverse backgrounds, including banking, travel, and insurance, while the remainder of the organization's managers have business and educational management experience. Additionally, we are fortunate to have nine Teach For Thailand alumni on our teams. These alumni, who have first-hand experience as fellows, collaborate closely with the Senior Leadership and management team to transform ideas and aspirations into a concrete plan and execution.

Through his personal connection, our CEO arranged for a fellow and an alumni from Teach For Thailand to collaborate with Darsel, a free supplemental learning platform for students with limited internet access.  He recognized that this platform would be extremely beneficial for students in Thailand, particularly after learning from our survey that more than half of our students lack full connectivity and high-speed internet access necessary to attend online classes and thus missed classes during the recent months when Thai schools were forced to go online due to Covid-19. Our fellows and alumni are now collaborating with Darsel on the development of a Chatbot on Facebook Messenger that will enable students to access education via low-bandwidth channels whenever they want. The Chatbot is now programmed to provide users with 7th grade math problems (to test, visit m.me/DarselTech and type class XTH). We hope to expand and roll out this application to other subjects and to all schools in order to ensure that students have unrestricted access to education.

Yuvabadhana Foundation, Jaikrating Foundation, CVC Foundation, Chubb, Bank Of America, IVL Foundation, Ngern Tidlor, Swarovski Foundation, SCG Foundation, and Pruksa are some of our major donors. We also received in-kind/non-financial support from other organizations. For instance, Bain provided consulting services, Linkaters provided legal advice, True Health provided free online mental health consultations to Teach for Thailand staff and fellows, Google now features Teach For Thailand on their website (https://www.google.org/intl/en...), and Kasikorn Bank partnered with us to enable people to convert credit card points into donations.

We hope that this partnership not only secures financial support for us, but also establishes a network through which we can collaborate with other education organizations to advocate for improved education in Thailand. Additionally, we hope that mentorship and other support from the MIT Solve community will assist us in scaling our organization and increasing our impact in order to eventually achieve our goal of assisting children in communities throughout Thailand in acquiring the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and opportunities necessary to shape a meaningful future for themselves and their families, as well as to become justice-oriented citizens within their communities. We believe that there is still room for improvement for us, and we want to learn from the best how to use technology to maximize the social benefits of our limited resources.

We are seeking long-term financial and non-financial support from an organization that shares our mission and goals. Financial support would enable us to scale and expand our impact, while non-financial support would enable us to make the most efficient use of our limited resources. We sincerely hope to capture the attention of international communities and that mentorship and other support from the MIT Solve community will assist us in achieving our ultimate goal of assisting children in communities throughout Thailand in acquiring the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and opportunities necessary to shape a meaningful life.