Learn to read Thai, get an education

Amy Kazmin:

In the dilapidated former canteen of Thailand’s Wat Si Sutharam School, about 20 Burmese children – aged five to 15 – sit on benches, carefully copying the first letter of the Thai alphabet in lined notebooks. Among them is 10-year-old Sai Htaw, a boy from Burma’s ethnic Mon minority, whose mother, San Aye, a worker in the coastal province of Samut Sakorn’s vast seafood-processing factory, hovers nearby.

Sai Htaw has a Thai name (Amporn) and speaks Thai with ease. But he neither reads nor writes it. During what should have been the early years of his education he was barred from Thai schools because he lacked a birth certificate, something issued only to Thai citizens.

Now, toiling in the spartan classroom, supervised by volunteer teachers from a labour rights group, Sai Htaw is on the front line of what is likely to be an arduous struggle: the push to secure formal education for the often Thai-born children of migrant workers from Burma.

With a recent decision by Bangkok to open schools to all, Sai Htaw and his classmates have been promised places in schools alongside Thai children – once they grasp the basics of reading and writing Thai. Ms San Aye is elated: “I want him to study as much as he can.”

Posted by Jim Zellmer at July 18, 2007 12:00 AM
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