The school run by kids

孩子们开办的学校

People Fixing the World

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2024-05-14

22 分钟
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If you could invent a new kind of school what would it look like? What skills would you teach children, and how would the school be run? On this edition of People Fixing The World we visit the Mechai Pattana School in Thailand which was founded by the campaigner Mechai Viravaidya in 2008, on principals of charity and leadership. Children are responsible for every aspect of running the school, from buying food for the kitchens to disciplining fellow students and even recruiting new staff. The children also run their own businesses, and perform several hours of community service every week. Many of the students come from underprivileged backgrounds, but their school fees are “paid” by planting 800 trees a year, together with their families. The idea is for the school to produce “change-makers” – could it be a model for others to follow? Presenter: Myra Anubi Producer/reporter: William Kremer Series Producer: Jon Bithrey Editor: Tom Bigwood Sound mix: Annie Gardiner
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  • People Fixing.

  • People Fixing the World.

  • Welcome to People Fixing the World from the BBC World Service with me, Mayra Anubi.

  • In this program, we put despair back in its box for about 23 minutes and instead bring you clever solutions to some of the world's problems.

  • Today we're heading to Thailand to find out how a school is getting children to become more responsible by, well, letting them run their own school.

  • We'll hear how these kids manage their finances, recruit their own teachers and even discipline one another.

  • In 2023, the UN called for education across the world to be made more relevant for children and for schools to find ways to foster a sense of civic responsibility and respect for diversity.

  • According to their report, problem solving, resil and teamwork will be key skills in helping the next generation manage the challenges they will face in the future.

  • So maybe it's time to think differently about what a school is for and how it works.

  • And there is one school that has been quietly experimenting with this idea for 15 years.

  • These are children at Mi Chai Bamboo School in Thailand saying hello Sawadika.

  • It's very unusual, but in this high school the children run everything.

  • Yes, you heard right, the kids run the school.

  • They clean the dishes, buy the school supplies, decide which students to admit into the school.

  • I mean they pretty much do everything.

  • And my mind was blown away by this and I wanted to know, does it actually work?

  • So our reporter, William Kramer made his way to the beautiful country of Thailand in Southeast Asia, to a province called Buriram to see this pioneering school and learn from the students.

  • It's a boarding school and so William joined them for a very early morning assembly.

  • So it's 25 past 6 in the morning and all the students are just streaming into their kind of assembly hall space, which is really a magnificent domed structure made out of bamboo with a corrugated metal roof.

  • And it's so big that it's actually got a full size basketball court inside.