Mr. Thanin Timtong, co-founder and Managing Director of Learn Education Co., Ltd., a social enterprise in educational innovations affiliated with Learn Corporation Co., Ltd., has recently joined the Ashoka Group, a global community of change-makers.
Mr. Thanin has become an official member of Ashoka in 2018. Ashoka is a social innovator founded in the United States in 1980 with the belief that ‘Everyone can make a change.’ to develop a social sector in which people are empowered to solve problems and make positive changes in their own communities, whose partners are global change-making organizations, such as Facebook, Google, IKEA Foundation, and Disney.
Mr. Thanin is changing the method of teaching mathematics and science in schools. With his past experiences, he realized that education is a foundation of a good life and Learn Education, a social enterprise he co-founded is currently creating measurable social outcomes and creating strong forces towards Thailand’s education reform.
“I want all students to receive a good education that is in line with their interests and to have a suitable career.” said Thanin who is also committed to reforming the education system by encouraging schools and teachers to be change-makers by using the “Blended Learning Platform” that combines the advantages of traditional teaching with a wide range of technology and instructional systems that encourage students to study according to their learning capabilities and to transform a teacher into a coach. Learn Education has been collaborating with schools with progressive-minded principals and enthusiastic teachers and has designed the system per the teachers’ needs by allowing them to work alongside software developers. Each school and teacher decides how and how much the system will be used. Learn Education serves both public and private schools as well as alternative schools and operates by charging schools that have the purchasing power and providing free services to schools that lack. The result shows that students using Learn services obtain 20 percent higher scores on national standardized tests. Learn Education sets out to expand the program from 35,000 students in 150 schools at the moment to 1,000,000 students and 10,000 teachers which is a milestone that he believes will be an irresistible driving force for Thailand’s educational reform.
Mr. Thanin has studied and researched on students’ learning and behaviors from over 100 institutions with the same mission across the world, supplemented with the data he gathered from the classrooms. He witnessed many aspects of development, for instance, by expanding the curriculum beyond mathematics and science to other subjects, including civics education and moral duties and by developing trainkru.com, an online platform that encourages teachers to exchange knowledge and teaching materials, as well as providing coding as well as other skill trainings that are useful in adjusting the software to suit each teacher’s need. Moreover, Mr. Thanin is currently developing a solution to help 20 percent of slow-learning pupils. He sees the possibility of bringing good information and innovations to reform the education system following Thailand’s labor market.
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