Abstract
This paper attempts to analyze the role of Buddhist schools, one of the secondary educational institutions in Thailand, from the perspective of educational opportunities for hill tribes and problems of their ethnicity associated with the national integrated education.
This paper addresses three issues. The first is what kind of students Buddhist schools accept, while the second is the purpose students attending Buddhist schools have in terms of Buddhism and Buddhist schools. By analyzing these two issues, we can clarify the roles of Buddhist schools. The third issue examines matters of the ethnicity of hill tribe students attending Buddhist schools in relation to Lak Thai, the national integrated education system. Particularly, the impact of the negative effects of education at Buddhist schools are examined from the perspective of “multiculturalism.”
For the study on which this paper is based, the author conducted a questionnaire survey on students at four Buddhist schools in Chiang Mai Province, Thailand in February, 2020.
The following are the results on the first issue. About 60% of students attending the four Buddhist schools surveyed were from hill tribes. It was found that the parents of many of these students did not have sufficient educational opportunities. In addition, it was found that students from hill tribes tend to enter Buddhist schools later than the standard age, as compared to members of the Thai ethnic majority. From these findings, it can be said that Buddhist schools have a role in providing educational opportunities for 72 hill tribes.
Regarding the second issue, it was found that about 70% of students attending Buddhist schools did not intend to become monks in the future. Interviews with a teacher at Buddhist schools also revealed that the percentage of students who became monks after adulthood was unknown, but not high. Although the majority of the student's parents were Buddhists, some Karen might be Christians. Since there were few students who entered study with a motivation to become monks, it was likely that they joined Buddhist schools to seek secondary educational opportunities. However, students tended to be interested in Buddhism before entering Buddhist schools. This means that Buddhism has permeated the community among hill tribes.
In terms of the third issue, it was found that the majority of students from hill tribes had a composite “ethnic” and “Thai” identity. It became clear that students of hill tribes at the Buddhist school had a strong ethnic identity. The majority of students also respected the “King” and “monks”, which are the symbols of Lak Thai. This means that students of hill tribes were influenced by the national integrated education. It was also found that while hill tribe students used Thai in the school, they used ethnic languages at home.
