What Is TSQM?

Many people may never have heard of TSQM. It stands for Teacher and School Quality Movement. It is not just the name of a project but a movement, one that asks a new question: can the quality of Thai schools be designed from the inside?

It began with TSQP (the Program), which trialed new teaching methods, formats, and topics in some areas until results showed. It then expanded into TSQM (the Movement). In Korat, the Movement has joined hands with Nakhon Ratchasima Rajabhat University as the TSQM-NRRU-Network, led by Ajarn Oy, Asst. Prof. Dr. Sirinat Chongkonklang. The Nakhon Ratchasima Office of Lifelong Learning (NRLL), together with all 7 educational service area offices, the Equitable Education Fund (EEF), the Im Ok Im Jai Foundation, and Lam Plai Mat Phatthana School, is helping make school development grow from the “roots,” not only from policy.

Last Wednesday, the university held an event called “Network Power, Changing Education, Building Lifelong Learning.” We saw schools in the network and model schools stand up to present their own learning innovations. These weren’t just ideas on paper but things done in real classrooms. There were many interesting topics:

• Contemplative education (จิตศึกษา), which awakens the volunteer spirit of the new generation of children through reflective activities.
• The art of words tied to historical stories, which brings the Thai language to life.
• Thai schools that can really speak English, when the atmosphere and language change.
• Children who learn in the community and can truly excel, when a whole village becomes a classroom.
• Teachers who can really do research, through the power of a PLC (Professional Learning Community) that turns teachers into designers of learning.

The afternoon was a World Cafe where we visited every booth, and the most important part came after that.

At the end of the event came what was, for me, the quietest and most powerful sight. Several hundred participants walked back in and sat in a circle. There was no stage. No screen. No one acting as speaker. There were only the voices of administrators, teachers, and students exchanging what we want the Thai education system to be.

TSQM doesn’t change everything in one day. It starts by letting people in the system listen to one another.

I believe that if universities and schools are really to play a role together, it may not be just training or research. It is setting up a circle where we listen until we understand, and then change things together. Not because someone better comes in to fix it for us, but because the people in the system stand up and redesign it, together.

Finally, I’d like to thank Ajarn Oy once again for making this event happen, and for letting us see the coming together of so much energy for education. 🙌