The Significant of Model School in Pluralistic Society of the Three Southern Border Provinces of Thailand

Abstract

This educational research is about the study of the schools’ system in the Pluralistic Society of the Three Southern Border Provinces of Thailand. The research was carried out with some certain objectives in terms of analyzing the achievement of the Thai government schools in conducting the complete integrated Islamic studies programs from at least 12 experienced schools under the supervision of the Office of Regional Education of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat Provinces. The analysis will be touched on the main issues such as the background of Islamic educational system, the current appropriate administrative structural system of the schools, the process of teaching and learning through the Islamic integrated method, communities’ satisfaction in running the complete Islamic Studies program as well as the communities’ reaction to this program. There are totally 12 schools are involved in this study : 6 of them from the Office of Regional Education of Pattani, 3 schools from the Office of Regional Education of Yala and another 3 schools from the Office of Regional Education of Narathiwat Province. This research employs a non-manipulative Multi-model Approach in collecting data from various kinds of figure such as officers from the Office of Regional Education; schools’ administrators; Islamic studies teachers; students as well as communities near-by the schools. There are 108 sampling were participated in certain activities such as focus-group, dept-interview and discussion as well. Beside those methods, participation and observation were also used for. To evaluate and analyze the achievement of the schools’ administrative procedure and the process of teaching and learning, however, this research depends on the Deming Cycle theory (PDCA), the Community’s Participation framework as well as the Integrated Curriculum theory. The result of the study show that, a significant traits of the model schools in the multi-cultural society are not merely performed well in administrative procedure, teaching and learning process, but these schools also able to reveal the real social norm and religious believe into communities’ practical life as a truly “Malay-Muslim” society. It is means that, the school able to run the integrated programs under the shade of philosophy of Islamic education paralleled the National Education aims to ensure that the productivities of the programs able to serve both sides, national education on the one hand and the Malay Muslim communities’ satisfaction on the other hand.