Gaining insights from the bottom-up approach for teacher training needs: case study for school disengagement

Abstract

Abstract

The pilot project, jointly conducted by a foreign business community and schools, illustrates a bottom-up approach in determining in-service teacher training for school disengagement. The development of in-service teacher training is traditionally based on the experts and senior administrators without much input from ordinary teachers or this top-down approach. Since dealing with school disengagement has been viewed as the relationship between a teacher and a student, the bottom-up approach should be examined. A group of 147 teachers from five schools participated in the pilot project (part of a foreign business community's involvement with education). The bottom-up approach provides coherent findings between school problems and training needs and gives consistent findings with both previous studies and the opinions of business experts. Working directly with teachers has been part of a strategy of the foreign business community when attempting to improve the quality of education in Thailand.