Education Minister Narong
Phipatanasai inspects the barracks where college students will be
interned for a month-long camp aimed at teaching them discipline, morals
and ethics.
Patcharapol Panrak
In the wake a string of high-profile brawls between vocational
school students, the Royal Thai Navy drafted about 100 Bangkok-area
college students into a month-long camp aimed at teaching them
discipline, morals and ethics.
Former Navy commander and now Education Minister Narong Phipatanasai
presided over the Oct. 16 opening of the camp with top navy officers and
students from Kanchanaphisek Mahanakorn Technical College,
Kanchanaphisek Samut Prakan Technical College, and Samut Prakan
Polytechnic College.
Students were shown where they will live, study, attend courses and eat
at Chumpon Navy School. Courses cover reconciliation, discipline,
ethics, integrity and harmony. The results of the training this year
will be used to test and improve the courses to use as a model for
realistic training that is going to take place in November 2015.
Narong emphasized the “boot camp” is not to turn the students into
military personnel. But it is hoped that it will eliminate or greatly
reduce the fights that have grabbed headlines this year. There have been
so many brawls between warring colleges that Prime Minister Prayuth
Chan-o-cha has threatened to close down colleges that don’t rein in
their students. Two schools have been closed for a month already.
