Teachers face constant threats and have become targets for attacks in insurgency-plagued south
PATTANI and YALA, Thailand (AlertNet) – It felt like a normal sunny day in the immaculately clean and tidy schoolyard of BanYaha primary school in Yala province, with children playing, chatting and reciting lessons, but the region in Thailand’s south has been dubbed “one of the most dangerous places in the world to teach.”
Since a long-running separatist insurgency flared up in 2004, teachers have been caught up in violence in Thailand’s three southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat. Teachers face constant threats and have become targets for attacks because they are seen by the insurgents as symbols of the Thai state.
“In the morning when they go to school, the teachers never know whether they will come back in the evening,” Bunsom Thongsriprai, chairman of the Southern Border Provinces Teacher Association told AlertNet.
Prasit Meksuwan, the school’s principal, agreed.
“Previously a teacher could work until late at night at the school but now we have to begin at nine and they have to go back at three,” the veteran teacher with nearly four decades of experience told AlertNet. “The teachers are afraid and discouraged.”
Easy access to guns and drugs, coupled with other crime, add to a climate of fear, compounded by drive-by shootings and roadside bombings almost every day in the Muslim-dominated region, formerly part of a Malay Muslim sultanate until it was annexed by Thailand a century ago.
Last September, two Buddhist teachers were gunned down while riding a motorcycle in Narathiwat, leading the closure of all public schools in the province for three days.
More than 150 teachers and education staff have been killed as a result of insurgency-related violence since January 2004.
The most recent Human Rights Watch’s report on the volatile region said there had been 327 arson attacks on schools between January 2004 and August 2010.
Bede Sheppard, the report’s author, said teachers were putting their lives at risk every day.
"Southern Thailand is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a teacher," Bede Sheppard, author of the report, told AlertNet. "Being a teacher in these provinces means putting your life on the line every day.”
Such fears have prompted some teachers to request the protection of soldiers but paradoxically, it also makes them more of a target.
STUDENTS SUFFER
The Deep South has a high teacher turnover and is unable to attract qualified teachers as a result of the violence. Many teachers are on temporary contracts and lack necessary experience and qualification.
As a result, students from the Deep South do much worse than their counterparts elsewhere in Thailand. They were among the worst performers in Maths, Science and Thai in the whole country, according to an evaluation from the Ministry of Education.
The violence, which has claimed the lives of 4,500 people since 2004, also leaves deep psychological scars.
Thai army and paramilitary forces deployed to schools or near them also disrupt education and place pupils at unnecessary risk of insurgent attacks, Human Rights Watch said.
Some schools have suffered an exodus of students. Meksuwan said of BanYaha primary school had around 300 Thai-Chinese students at the start of insurgency - now there are only 30.
ISLAMIC TEACHERS ALSO FACE THREAT
It isn’t just Buddhist teachers who fear for their lives.
“For Buddhist teachers, if they can, they’ll move to another place,” Meksuwan said. “But for Muslim teachers, this is the birthplace for them; they have a home and family so they have to stay here and cannot go anywhere.”
While attacks in mosques and Islamic private schools are rare, teachers and students there are similarly caught in the middle between shadowy insurgents and state officials.
Muslim teachers told AlertNet they feel they are discriminated and unfairly targeted by state officials who believe Islamic schools are a hotbed of insurgency.
Many spoke of the military turning up unannounced – although some said the situation has improved recently – to take pictures of the school and question the teachers and students.
Syihabuddin Romlee , a teacher at a tadika (an Islamic pre-school conducted at the mosque) in Pattani said he had gotten used to the military visiting his school regularly.
“If an incident occurs somewhere near a tadika, the first thing is the school and teacher will be questioned,” said Romlee. “They will come with weapons in their hands and scare the students. You get used to it.”
They fear they will be detained and put on the notorious “black list” – the first port of call in case any incident happens.
Abdul Asis from the Young Muslim Association of Thailand told AlertNet that the situation is undermining confidence in young Muslim students and is prompting many to leave the area and move to Malaysia.
“They are afraid and not confident to show their leadership characteristics, because leaders are the ones that governments will see as possible insurgents,” Asis said. “When the youth cannot express or show their ability, performance or leadership, our community will not develop.”
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
