Below IQ
As I was driving to work this morning, my regular bad-car-singing escapades was interrupted by the 10 am news. Nothing really interesting – same political BS, same crappy issues… but at least one news point caught my attention.
It seems the average Thai kids IQ is below the international average of developed nations. Thai 8-13 kids on average have an IQ of about 88 according to the recent report.
I’m not all that surprised considering the activities and outlets Thai kids have at their disposal…. namely shopping malls, and well… shopping malls…. barely any libraries, barely any organized sports. Its actually really sad… considering the Central Group just bought land around Pleon Chit from the British Embassy to develop another damn shopping complex… I mean seriously how many shopping malls does Bangkok need?
And psh… Thai secondary education? Forget about it… its not about learning – its about memorization.
Anyhow, let me stop my senseless rant.
Apparently Bangkok never has enough shopping malls. I think gov’t is doing it all wrong… education, traffic, health, widening income gap, etc. Only if they could all just think about long term development, life would be a lot better… and Thai kids (which I happen to be one) would not be or look so superficial and dumb comparing to other countries. T_T Sigh.
I agree with the consumerist aspect of thai society now and the teacher figure in thai education that need to be respect and not challenge in questionning.
But there is some cleaver thai children with the help of private lessons, another aspect is the new generation with thai and european or american blood seems to have better weapons for the economic battle….
Do you suppose the testing might be off? I mean, 88 is pretty low. Surely there must be some other reason for it?
Perhaps they’re just not measuring the “right” intelligence–maybe Thai kids are better at spotting a shopping bargain than others?
Just a thought from a metroblogging neighbor in Sacramento.
So true about the education. I was flunking my behind off barely made it at the end of each semester when i was in Thai school until I changed the system where I never got grades lower than B.