Visit to Ban Subsanoon School, Saraburi, Thailand

On 9 August 2008, I had the chance to visit one of the schools adopted by SEAMEO, which is the Ban Subsanoon School, located in the Saraburi province, which is about 140km north of Bangkok. The school itself is about 80km away from the town of Saraburi, which makes it 22okm away from Bkk. It took us 4hours as we were traveling by truck. I went there with Khun Manus, one of our general staff.

7.00am: Me, Kun Manus and Khun Ed, the driver, all set to head for Saraburi with a truck loaded with furniture, books and other stuffs for the school library.

11.00am Finally arrived at Ban Subsanoon School. The school's pretty quiet as it's a Saturday morning and no activities in going on at that time. The two boys in the picture were going into the school compound to meet their friends. The school gate is always open as students can play football, basketball or merely read and do their homework at the many reading areas in the school compound at their own time.

Happily looking gals, working together doing their homework under shady trees.

Creative Freeze Learning Refrigerator; an old regrigerator turned into a book cabinet

where books are placed at an outdoor reading corner. The idea is that the books available for reading are safe and kept dry even if it rains. The refrigerator is fully stocked on Monday morning and removed

on Friday evening for safety purposes.

This is one of the many reading areas in the school compound.

Recycling corner; used plastic water bottles are collected and then

sold off to the recyclying vendor. The brooms are used by the students to clean the school compound

every morning. Notice the blue board behind the brooms...that is the students' cleaning duty roster for the whole term. Each student is assigned an area; everyone has something to do during the daily cleaning session.

from left: Khun Kanitha Goklang (Vice Head), Khun Manus, me

and Khun Kesorn Ploypradab(English teacher) pose with the stuffs contributed by SEAMEO.

Lynn and the school children.

In front of the school library, all set for lunch after handing over the furniture and all.

Some facts on Ban Subsanoon School:

33 years old

total number of students: 584

total number of teachers: 24

level of students:

kindergarten (5-6 years old)

prathom 1-6 (7-12 years old)

matthayom 1-3 (13-15 years old)

daily shedule:

7.40-8.00: cleaning session (all students are involved according to the duty roster)

8.00-8.10: assembly

8.10-820: sermon given by a monk

8.20-8.30: teacher announcement

8.30-11.30:lesson starts

11.30-12.30:lunch break

12.30-3.30:lesson resumes

3.30-5.30:co-curricular activities/sports

School library is open to public from Monday to Friday: 7.00-8.00am, 11.40-12.30pm and 3.30-5.00pm.

from left: me, Khun Kanitha, Dato' Ahamad Sipon (SEAMES Director), Dr. Tinsiri(SEAMES Deputy Director), Khun Wirayude(SEAMES Finance Manager) and Khun Piyapa(SEAMES Liason Officer) at the presentation of scholarships and books worth 60,000 baht for the school library on 18 August at SEAMES office.

# SEAMES=Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Secretariat