Education for Security or Peace?: Rethinking the Thai State’s Education Policies in Conflict-Affected Southern Thailand
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Abstract
This paper critically examines education policies in the context of violent conflict in Thailand’s southern border provinces. Drawing upon Tejendra Pherali's Victim-Perpetrator-Liberator-Peacebuilder (VPLP) framework, this paper argues that, for the most part, education has either been a “victim” or acted as a "perpetrator," fuelling conflict rather than contributing to peacebuilding. Public schools have been targeted, and teachers have fallen victim to violence as the insurgents perceive them as agents of the state. The state has used education as an instrument to inculcate the sense of Thai nationhood and serve security purposes through the assertion of Thai language and Bangkok-centric Thai history. The importance of local language, history, and identities have been insufficiently recognised in educational programming. The situation has worsened after the 2014 coup, with military intervention in educational programming in the name of "education for security", drawing criticism from educators.
For education to be a key contributor to peacebuilding, the government must ensure genuine recognition of the plurality of ethno-religious identities in the education system. The recognition of cultural diversity and local histories, mother tongue-based multilingual education, the declaration of Malay Patani as a working language in southern Thailand and intercultural education are among the initiatives that could transform education into liberator/peacebuilders.
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References
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