SATUN: Small schools have struggled to stay open not just today but tomorrow from being merged and eventually closed with larger ones nearby, following a controversial policy of the Education Ministry. Bankota School and Wat Nha Muang School in Satun were last year put in a merger list, but an attempt was turned down due to the communities' disagreement. This time, both of them might again survive from the ministry's current move to merge small schools with less than 60 students, but their future remains uncertain as they have less than 120 students which is still considered small schools according to the ministry's definition. They believed that higher school quality might be a good excuse to keep  open. Punnanee Jahnum, director of Bankota School, said that the school had a worth lesson when it was last year on the verge of being merged with larger one where was three kilometres away. The La-ngu community came out and opposed that move as they worried about transportation and their children safety. "We have less students but our students do well in the study. The Ordinary National Education Test (Onet) of Prathom 6 students here is higher than an average score of the Office of the Basic Education Commission (Obec)," she said. "To survive the closure policy today and in future, we see that an increase in students' academic acheivement might save us," said the director. Ms Punnaree said that the school and community planed to replace the old teaching method with a research-based instruction that can encourage students to think and analyse more. Now, the school housed 69 pupils from kindergarten to Prathom 6 classes. Wirat Omanee, head of La-ngu community, said that the provincial educational zone last year failed to discuss about the merger plan with community. If the school was put in the merger list once again, the community will stand up to protest. "The provincial educational zone have struggled to merge small schools just to please the adults. If we keep silent, our children's school might be closed without notice," he said. Also, Wat Nha Muang School in Satun's Muang district used to face the same problem of being merged. Jureerat Kaeyiwa, director of Wat Nha Muang School, reminded that the school had about 80 students from kindergarten to Prathom 6 and the number kept decreasing. More parents were driving pass the school to send their children to study at larger one and then one day the provincial educational zone announced to merge the school with another bigger, she said. "Luckily, the plan is skipped because there still have some parents who want their kids to learn close to their house. So, I think something must be done to bring parents' reliability towards school back," she said. Then, the research-based instruction was implemented in 2010 to teach students to ask a question, correct and analyse data and present the results. "Students will do the research related to their community while all eight core subjects of Obec are taught as usual," she said. Ms Jureerat added that students' skills in critical and creative thinking was improving and they learned how to work as a team and respect opposition opinions, resulting in better academic performance and a return of parents' reliability. Now, the school had 108 students from kindergarten to Pratom 6. The research-based instruction has been introduced to Satun by Thailand Research Fund (TRF) to help solve education problem after the first stage of education reform which led to an attentiveness among educators to improve education quality and standard. In 2012 academic year, eleven schools in Satun have implemented this research-based teaching. Somphong Leechorh, coordinator of TRF's Satun research centre, said that students have still learned core contents of Obec, but the change was the learning and teaching method. In the past, teacher directly brought knowledge to students but with the new method of the research-based instruction, teachers just stimulated students to find knowledge themselves by doing basic research. Both school agreed that one solution for small schools to relieve from a risk situation to be merged and finally closed was to develop their quality and standard. When improved, more students will come back and the adults would have no reason to merge them not only today but also in future. photo taken from bankota school  +++++++++++++++ Published caption:: Girls at a school in Satun stand in front of banners opposing the merger of small schools. More than 5,000 small-sized   schools are facing the possibility of mergers. LAMPHAI INTATHEP                       Sent from my iPad