Bai Mai Pun Suk Education and Environmental Initiatives
Bai Mai Pun Suk Foundation
Project Commitment to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
INTRODUCTION
The “Bai Mai Pun Suk Foundation” was focused on three areas of literacy and education development, which are enhancing youth education efficacy, promoting responsible consumption of resources and environmental consciousness, and improving well-being.Three education and environmental initiatives were organized, called “Read and Write with Ease” to achieve youth education, “Ruk Pun Suk Junior” to spread environmental consciousness, and “Solar Pun Suk” to promote well-being improvement.
FRAMEWORK AND STRATEGY
The foundation is committed to addressing the issue of illiteracy through a systematic approach to practical teaching that helps teachers better transfer knowledge to their students. The foundation aims to enhance students’ literacy skills by realizing their age-appropriate learning potential while fostering their environmental consciousness and sustainable energy practices that are aligned with a low-carbon society.It was discovered that teachers across the country were reporting incidents of child illiteracy with varying degrees of severity, regardless of if the schools were in cities, economic zones, or remote areas. This is the result of the archaic teaching methodology commonly used to teach Thai which hinders student learning. The foundation is focused on mitigating the issue at the root cause by implementing a 4-step teaching program (Testing, Training, Monitoring and Support, and Evaluation). Schools that successfully address these illiteracy issues are then offered further assistance to address environmental and energy issues to foster sustainable development skills via “Ruk Pun Suk Junior” and “Solar Pun Suk” campaigns.
The assistance is provided on a tangible goal basis, namely academic performance improvement, good behavior, environmental responsibility, resource consumption reduction, and behaviors aligned with SDGs 4, 7, 12, and 13.
ACHIEVEMENT AND IMPACT
Based on a three-tier assessment, the “Bai Mai Pun Suk Foundation”s success and impact were evaluated, leading to the following conclusions.Teacher-student participation satisfaction statistics show that more than 90% of participants were satisfied and happy to join the activities, with more than 17,000 teachers and students benefiting from the programs. Educational development efforts also led to satisfactory student performance, post-program assessments found that more students were able to read and write, and were happy to engage in more complex subjects. As there was a resulting higher academic performance, schools are now willing to expand on the new teaching concepts and, thus, becoming role model for other schools in the education network. The latter role includes becoming a community learning center, distributing information on waste management, agricultural management, and solar energy application for rural agricultural areas.
The foundation tracks and collects data on the effects of literacy on students and their families using SROI (Social Return on Investment) tools. This revealed that the investment ratio per benefit was 1:1.19 indicating that investment in basic education significantly affects educational institutions and students positively.
FUTURE DIRECTION
The “Bai Mai Pun Suk Foundation” is committed to strengthening literacy and education among youths. The foundation plans to continue to expand and develop the proven success of the projects in the future, with a continued focus on addressing education as the key to sustainable development.Besides that, the foundation intends to maintain the quality of the programs in target groups by expanding clear “role model” approaches and practices for all three programs. Work is also in progress to expand the scope of operations to provinces with below-average academic performance to improve performance and rectify educational issues for children at the grass-root level. Finally, the foundation will be developing a digital platform for future programs to serve as a more effective communication channel between the foundation and its partnered educational institutions.
The “Bai Mai Pun Suk Foundation” was established by Bangchak
Corporation Public Company Limited (Bangchak) in 2017 to engage
in social missions aligned with the Sustainability Development Goal
(SDG) 4: Quality Education at its heart.
