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| Southeast Asia |
| Terror could force southern Thailand to homeschool |
| 2007-02-06 |
| Thailand is asking the United Nations for help to draw up home-schooling courses in case the escalating insurgency forces schools in the South to close for an extended period. The Narathiwat Edcuation Office is seeking funding from the United Nations Children's fund, known as Unicef, to help compose the "self learning lessons" for school children in the violence-plagued province, official Thai News Agency reported on Tuesday. The declining numbers of teachers willing to teach in Thailand's troubled southernmost border provinces has led to the appeal for help. Teachers now believe that home schooling provides the best chance of educating southern children without losing their own lives. Thawat Saehumy, chairman of the Narathiwat Teachers' Federation, said the home-study courses were being prepared in case the province was forced to close down some of its 200 schools because of lack of security. Most teachers proposed that "self-learning lessons" be made for students, so they can study at home, and teachers will collect their homework for correction. About 10 per cent of Narathiwat's 199 schools will pilot these lessons, Mr Thawat said. Suspected Muslim extremists have burned down some 110 schools and killed more than 70 teachers and school officials in the deep south since Jan 4, 2004, when militants raided army depots in the area and stole 300 rifles, triggering an escalation of violence in the area. Public school teachers, particularly but not exclusively Buddhist, have been specifically targetted as representatives of Thailand's Bangkok-based bureaucracy. They have become so-called soft targets in the war against Bangkok, with the insurgents seeing the schools as a symbol of state control of the South. |
| Posted by:ryuge |