politicians-from-thailand

"We still have to think of politics as a long game...And to win a long game, you need strategy and you need patience."

"We confuse movement with progress. It’s like we’re stuck in a loop, thinking we’ve gone somewhere, but we’re not."

"It's not going to be about just two or three individuals anymore. For me, leadership is a constant struggle to manifest changes. No single person can make changes happen. Instead, our remaining 55 MPs will discuss, make agreements and work as a team to keep our momentum going. We are now a leaner organisation that can respond quickly. We will be able to begin afresh. The party is smaller, but of better quality and [will be able to] move faster in responding to required responsibilities. The ideology is the same, but the mechanisms and paths followed are different," he said, adding that each faction will have absolutely no influence on the other and that he will not be involved with the movement."

"When people ask me 'How do you feel that you have failed?' and I would respond back to them that I won, I formed, and I got blocked. I didn't fail."

"I’m not planning to be in Thai politics forever. I don’t want to be 70 or 80 and sleeping in the parliament and speaking nonsense about blockchain and AI! I want to be able to pass the baton to the next generation of leaders."

"Even if I don’t have the authority to lead, I felt like I still have the legitimacy to lead. It might be two, three years, depending on the government’s performance. Then I’ll come back and become the prime minister or candidate for the next election, because the goal or the endgame for me is to show the world that (an) alternative Thailand is possible, and to be the undisputed leader in the democratic force in the region."

"I feel like it’s a vicious cycle. We keep going around in circles, and we never move forward...They can never take away our legacy...They can never take away our ideology."

"The promotion of fundamental rights will be the guiding star of Thai foreign policy."

"South Korea and Indonesia arguably proved that they could get out of military domination and prosper and thrive [as] strong democracies. Once you've reached that stage, it's hard for you to turn back. But it's not yet time for Thailand, and we just have to be patient and keep doing what we're doing."

"To be clear, I won the election...a lot of hopes and dreams of Thais all around the world...didn't translate into governance here in Thailand."

"In a constitutional monarchy, we want the King to be above politics, and we don't want any other political opponents to use lèse-majesté law to punish destroy political political opponents and push the youth away from the monarchy."

"The progressives, including myself, have to be much smarter and much stronger and also show the people that leadership is not just about fear. It can be about hope and it can be about working together with the people and it can be about empathy."

"My favourite leader in the world who I look up to is Jacinda Ardern. I think she proved to the world during the COVID crisis and during the Christchurch massacre that you don’t have to be a ‘strongman’ with fear tactics and a militant background to resolve crises for the country."

"The health of a democracy is not measured by how absolute or powerful the government is, but by how fair, active and robust the opposition is."

"We're seeing these fresh, supposedly new leaders coming in [in Southeast Asia]. Either you call that a succession plan or dynastic politics. Last name politics. A lot of countries are running [their] politics [like a] family business. You can probably think of a few countries apart from Thailand...you are probably thinking about Cambodia...The Philippines...Laos...[It's] not a problem, I mean if you think about Canada, if you think about Shinzō Abe in Japan, [[George W. Bush|[George] Bush]] [in the United States]...But's it's not really doing well in any other parts of the world."

"If there's any partnership that [can] come close to a reality, it would be Australia and ASEAN. Because we are natural partners of choice. We're at the same strategic ecosystem...We rely on one superpower for security. We also rely on one superpower for prosperity."

"There was a poll asking younger people what ASEAN means to the people in Laos...Thailand...Singaporeans. The result of the research says less than 20% [beleive ASEAN meant anything to them]. They couldn't give a hoot about...ASEAN. Because we cannot get things done! We are not relevant. We are not credible...We get together for meetings and...that Five Point Consensus comes out, and nothing gets done."

"We must not allow the abuse of legal mechanisms or the manipulation of constitutional processes to silence the voices of the people or undermine the integrity of our elections."

"If there is a rule of law in Thailand, I’m extremely confident the party’s arguments will prevail."

"I’m confident that by 2027, when we will have the next election, our political horizons will be closer. Whatever our party name will be… we will absolutely be ready."

"Education is perceived as a crucial instrument for increasing productivity and income, skills, competency of human resources, and sustainable growth."

"The old saying, "Teachers will teach the way they have been taught" is very much in evidence in the Thai educational system. Hence, introducing change to educational practices has to start with teachers' learning. When the learning process of teachers and teacher training has been changed, it is assured that the new learning process will be replicated in classrooms. If teacher education is loaded with lecturing, it is very difficult to introduce other kinds of teaching to school learning. If teachers' learning emphasizes memorization or rote learning, it is unlikely that school learning will include high-order thinking. Therefore, every educational reform has to begin with teachers' learning, otherwise classroom learning will not be changed and new learning outcomes will not be achieved."

"Teachers also say that teaching for learning how-to-learn-learn will consume a lot of time. It will be difficult to cover all the content specified by the curriculum if learning uses up too much time on hands-on activities. The less-is-more alternative has not been considered as a possible solution at all in educational reforms where only expanding will bring about progress and development is more. Now is an appropriate time for educators to come down to the heart of educational matters or the learning methods to achieve the less-is-more alternative in all educational reforms."

"Teachers need to be trained on how children learn, not only how to solve mathematical problems. They must know how to make learners well understand the New Math and enable them to solve mathematical problems."

"Teachers should be able to help learners to efficiently communicate to other numerical ideas and to make connection with real-life problems in the areas chosen for their eventual career. Training only on subject matter is definitely not going to bring about this expertise. There must be more emphasis on coaching and facilitating techniques. In their normal practices, teachers must see very clearly where each individual learner stands on the learning continuum of that particular development, what problems and difficulties he or she is going to face and what lies ahead on that learning continuum to be walked by the learner. Teachers should be trained to be a master of how to help each and every learn to walk through the learning task. Going through the learning task is a necessary and essential aspect of teacher training but it is not sufficient to make them good and effective teachers."

"Teachers have to be learners. They have to treat each new group of students as a different group, fresh and unknown. Teachers often perceive new students as being the same as those in the previous group and apply the same practice to them. If teachers are learners, they will study the new group of students in order to identify their strengths and weaknesses, then teach them accordingly."

"The kind of education we are looking for, it is necessary that teachers have to walk through this learning process and then practise them later on in their teaching. Professionalism can be achieved by teachers if they practise learning in their teaching."

"In fostering a sense of success, teachers have to be responsive to the learners and create several self-assessment activities in learning."

"A reflective teacher always fosters a sense of success. He or she begins his or her teaching by learning about each and every learner. He or she encourages and negotiates with the learners to set a challenging learning objective, and to select an appropriate learning task, through his or her knowledge about the learners' capability and constraints."

"The reflective teacher makes the learners decide for themselves and ensures that the decision is sound and reasonable. He or she asks a lot of questions for the learners to carry out self-assessment."

"The reflective teacher is also a learner. He or she always reflects on his or her behaviour by looking at what happens to the learners. Learning about the learners' responses will help the reflective teacher select more effective behaviour for some particular purposes that suits particular learners."

"To make teachers more reflective, a series of self-assessment sessions have to be conducted, beginning with an analysis of the learners, or the students. Teachers have to be trained or retrained on how to make their teaching more effective and successful."

"It should be seen that reflective teachers are necessary and essential in an education which is geared towards human development."

"It will be fair and just to require all teachers to be reflective, only if educational practices specify the empowering of human resources or emphasize that learning is a reconstruction of nature. Otherwise, retraining of teachers to be more reflective will not be cost-effective"

"A sense of success in teaching has to be reinforced to make the teachers proud of their achievement."

"In a world that changes at an exponential rate, members of such world community have to be very proficient in finding reasonable solutions to the problems that they face by themselves."

"A solution to one problem can not be totally applicable to other problems. It is said that there are no two problems that are exactly alike."

"There are many variables intertwined in every problem and components of all the variable involved have to be carefully studied. Forming solutions by studying and synthesizing the relationship among key variables seems to be very much in need. The ability to identify a meaning from observable and obtained data is the core of human characteristics in such changing society. Hence, inductive thinking has to be instilled in every learner for a productive citizenship in the changing world of tomorrow."

"The learner has to realize that he or she is the one who sets the objective, the learning tasks and the stage for success."

"The "scaffolding" practice that forces every learner to go along a very definite path of learning will create negative feelings about learning. At the end, the learners will be submissive to the teachers. Good disciplinary practices cannot then be achieved."

"Education in the form of passing on information, facts and specific knowledge does not need reflective teachers. Reflective teachers are very important in a democratic education because the learners' liberty is always respected."

"Constructive process is a process of development and learning is a process of reconstruction of nature."

"The learning must belong to the learners and not to the teachers."

"I strongly believe that, as a citizen of the world, any person has the right to learn"

"and should be entitled to have access to education according to their competency and needs."

"It is essential that the government provide educational services that respond to the people’s needs*"

"Education, therefore, has to be organized in such a way that people from all walks of life can participate in educational activities at levels and times of their preference."

"With regard to the learning society, as I mentioned earlier, optimistically, people from all walks of life should be able to have equal access to education according to their needs and potentials."

"All sort of boundaries, be their gender, age, socio-economic status, physical or mental disabilities have to be eliminated."

"To achieve this, we have to distinctively promote continuing and lifelong education, the form of education which is responsive to individual needs and preferences. With educational facilities and a variety of educational programs available, people can make use of the learning centre as a place to acquire technical skills or knowledge adaptive to their work and daily life activities."