Education
For the Princess Mother, education had always been a goal in life. This love for education also fulled her desire to encourage, not only her own children, but the people she came in contact with, to further their studies to the best of their abilities. To this end, she continuously provided support when and where she could, most significantly in remote areas which the network of the central government could not reach.
Being a scholarship student herself, the Princess Mother was known to have provided scholarships as far back as 1920, not long after her marriage to Prince Mahidol Adulyadej. The Bangkok Times issue of 21 September 1920 listed the names of donors to the Kullasatri Wang Lang School, which included the newly-weds, who had donated 5,000 baht. The publication noted that Mom Sangwal Mahidol na Ayudhya, having married into the Royal Family, was entitled to an annual stipend of 200 baht, and that she had decided to donate it in its entirely to needy students.
Her students as a scholarship student had been under the direction of Prince Mahidol. Her studies included algebra, English, Latin and French, in addition to her courses in nursing and public health. She also received tutorials in psychology, cooking and nutrition.
Through the influence of her royal husband, she had always considered it her responsibility to return to Thailand to help the nation. This sense of responsibility was also instilled in the hearts of her three children from the time they were small. According to Princess Galyani Vadhana:
| “ | “It was almost an unspoken rule, a nature sense of priority to do what we could for the country. What mother taught us came from Father. He was 8 years older than Mother, and taught her a lot. Mother was very receptive, she learned so much from Father. What she taught us I later found to be almost quoted verbatim from Father…It was like Father teaching us through Mother…” | ” |
Although her children were brought up in a western environment, the Princess Mother always made sure that they retained their contacts with their language and culture. She commissioned a jigsaw puzzle in the shape of a map of Thailand as an educational toy for her children. History and geography quizzes were a standard family game at mealtimes, and if the children did not know the answer to a question, they had to look up in a dictionary or encyclopedia.
This kind of environment created by the Princess Mother was greatly conductive to inquisitive minds like those of the three royal children, encouraging them to strive for the best in whatever happened to interest them. When the two young princes became interested in World War I battleships, they would each study the subjects matter in depth, the elder prince researching German battelships while his younger brother read up on English and American vessels.
One of the Princess Mother’s initiatives with regard to education was the Border Patrol Police School project. As a result of her frequent trips to the remote corners of the kingdom, the Princess Mother learned of the extreme poverty of the villagers, especially those belonging to the hill tribes. One school had been set up by the Border Patrol Police Region 5 in their Dararasmi Camp, in Mae Rim District Chiang Mai Province. The school provided access to education for children in these remote regions, giving hilltribe children a chance to learn the Thai language and culture and instilling in them a sense of being Thai.
The concept was in line with the Princess Mother’s own philosophy that education was the key to improving human resources, a necessary development tool. She therefore took the school under her royal patronage in 1964, and donated funds to the Border Patrol Police to set up similar school in remote areas. The private sector found this to be a worthy cause, and contributed its share in setting up more schools, which were named after their donors.
Each school – and there were eventually to be 185 – had power classrooms and a proper residence for teachers for added convenience and incentive. She personally went to open each of these schools, donating to them a set of symbolic items to bolster a sense of Thai identity, including a Buddha image to symbolize religion, a portrait of the King or the Queen as an emblem of the monarchy, and a flag to represent the nation. She also made sure that each school was equipped with a radio set to keep up with the news, and a map of Thailand to give students a sense of belonging no matter where in the country they were located.
Read more about this topic: Srinagarindra
Famous quotes containing the word education:
“A good education is another name for happiness.”
—Ann Plato (1820–?)
“One is rarely an impulsive innovator after the age of sixty, but one can still be a very fine orderly and inventive thinker. One rarely procreates children at that age, but one is all the more skilled at educating those who have already been procreated, and education is procreation of another kind.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)
“To me education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil’s soul. To Miss Mackay it is a putting in of something that is not there, and that is not what I call education, I call it intrusion.”
—Muriel Spark (b. 1918)