It was a great honour to be invited to present to senior executives from the Thailand Ministry of Education (MOE) in Bangkok today. This meeting was led by Chief General Inspector Dr. Bundit Sriputtangul.

The Thai MOE are responsible for the running of about 35,000 schools and 14 million students from elementary levels to vocational training.

The topic was Preparing Generation Z for an Unknown Future and the focus was creativity in education.

While researching for this presentation, it was interesting to read some of the background literature from the OECD (The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) about recent Education initiatives in Thailand.

• The Thai education system appears to traditionally discourage the development of creativity and individuality among students.
• The Thai education system appears to traditionally be very teacher focused

In the 2015 PISA testing, Thailand ranked 54th of 70 nations (1=best; 70=worst) 54th in math, 57th in reading, and 54th in science – well below the OECD average.

The hope is that elearning, as part of educational reform in Thailand, will allow Thai students to become ‘self learners’ and will hopefully move Thailand in the direction of a ‘student centred’ approach to learning & teaching and hopefully in time improve their overall PISA ranking.

I was pleased to share that just this week, a new Horizon’s report (supported by Adobe) has been released examining how digital literacy training in higher education affects the occupational success of postgraduate learners as they enter the workforce. It suggested that with emerging technologies and evolving workplace demands, by 2020 employers will be seeking out the following list of skills:

1. Complex Problem Solving
2. Critical Thinking
3. Creativity
4. People Management
5. Coordinating with Others
6. Emotional Intelligence
7. Judgment and Decision Making
8. Service Orientation
9. Negotiation
10. Cognitive Flexibility

In a similar Horizon’s report in 2015, the required skills for the future were:

1. Complex Problem Solving
2. Coordinating with Others
3. People Management
4. Critical Thinking
5. Negotiation
6. Quality Control
7. Service Orientation
8. Judgment and Decision Making
9. Active Listening
10. Creativity

It is interesting to note the increase into the importance of creativity as an employability skill.

I demonstrated a number of examples of how Adobe software is helping enhance creativity in classrooms across the globe and most importantly, introduced these leaders to the Adobe Education Exchange as a powerful free resources to help guide teacher and provide resources.

A lot of the thought leadership and messaging about the importance of creativity in education appears to be new to Thai education so it was a wonderful privileged to present a message about what future teaching and learning should look like to best prepare young people for an unknown future.

I’m looking forward to further follow up visits in 2018 to help support education reform in Thailand.