CHIANG RAI, 11 February 2014 Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn on February 10 visited Wat Mae Kham Witthaya Sangha Pracha Upatham School situated in the compound of Mae Kham Monastery in Mae Chan District, Chiang Rai Province. The school is in the provincial group of Phra Pariyattitham schools aimed at providing general education for novice monks.
The aim of Her Royal Highness’s visit was to observe royally initiated projects designed to develop children and youths in remote rural areas which the school has adopted since 2010. As part of the projects, novices are trained to grow organic crops for use as ingredients in their lunch and to sell surplus products to the school’s cooperative. They are also given vocational training in such fields as sculpture, painting, and repairs of electrical appliances and motorcycles, during school holidays. The skills are expected to help them in acquiring jobs after finishing the school.
During her visit, the princess found the royal projects were progressing well while novices also gained higher-than-average results in their Ordinary National Educational Test (O-NET), both at the MS 3(Grade 9) and MS 6 (Grade 12) levels. The royal projects allow students to have nutritious food for lunch and milk on a daily basis, resulting in their proportionate growth in weight and height. The School currently has 215 students, mostly hill tribes. After finishing Grade 12, the students usually leave the Buddhist monkhood to further their studies at the university level or to make a living.
