Teachers’ Day: Safety and Better Welfare are two main concerns in the deep South
By Amad Ramansiriwong
Last Saturday January 16 marks Teachers’ Day - a single day within a year when teachers are overwhelmingly drowned in praises for their year-long hard work and dedication for the good of our young children.
Several activities were held nationwide, including in the violence-prone deep South, by both the government and the private sectors to celebrate the event and to demonstrate their appreciation towards teachers in general.
In Pattani, one of the three strife-torn provinces, Governor Thirathep Sriyaphan led officials and members of the public in a merit-making ceremony to pay homage to the victims who died in the past six years of violence. Alms were offered to hundreds of monks from 266 Buddhist temples from the three provinces. Fellowships were presented to 1,000 selected teachers in appreciation of their sacrifices.
Similar rituals were held in neighbouring Yala and Narathiwat provinces. In Narathiwat, Deputy Interior Minister Thavorn Senniam led officials to pay homage to death victims. Plaques and certificates were also presented to outstanding teachers.
Mr Prasit Thorsuan, director of Ban Khao Tanyong Friendship school in Narathiwat, said that the primary concern of most teachers in the region is safety in life and property. He said he didn’t want to see any teachers to be killed by the militants and urged the government not to cut back the “risk allowance” for the teachers for the risk they have to face in almost everday’s life.
In order to understand the high risk involved, one needs only to look at the death toll of teachers and educational officials for the past six years - a total of 114. Although the number of teachers killed or injured by militants has dropped last year compared to a year before, safety issue remains the primary concern. The most horrific case last year was the murder of an eight-month pregnant teacher, Mrs Atcharaporn Thepsorn, who was shot dead while traveling in a truck on her way home from school.
Even if the number of violent incidents has dropped last year compared to the statistics a year ago, teachers remain vulnerable and a soft target.
The followings are excerpts of the opinions voiced by some teachers about how they feel about their teaching career, about the risk they have to endure and what they expect from the government.
A teacher of more than ten years of experience in Muang district of Yala, Mrs Kurawan Sanhama, who had a close shave with death two years ago when a train she was traveling was peppered with automatic gunfire by the militants, said she was quite used to the violence in the deep South and had little choice but to face it in stride.
Despite the ever-present danger, she said she felt most teachers were determined to do their job the best they could. What the teachers want most is for the government to provide them with better security and to improve their welfare as an incentive.
Mrs Amornrat Suwanchatri, 53, has opted for early retirement but, in the end, changed her mind to return to teach again “because I am worried about the students and don’t want to feel that I have deserted them.”
The teacher feels that security for teachers is inadequate. “I feel that it is not 100 percent safe for coming to school every day. It all depends on fate - that is if we do a lot of good deeds, we will be safe from all the dangers,” she lamented.