Religious education in Thailand

In this article, I will talk about religious education in Thailand.

In Japan, the separation of religion and policy that politician and government are banned for supporting a certain religion as a nation. But in Thailand the situation is quite different. In Thailand, Buddhism is a state religion, and education is provided for Buddhism even at normal schools.

I will introduce how religious education is conducted.

Morning ceremony
As I mentioned a little in the second article, the students pray to the Buddha at the morning ceremony each morning. Everyone faces in the same direction, join hands and chanting sutras. I heard from a student at Khon Kaen University that it is customary to recite sutras in every school.

Classes like SEIKATSUKA
In the lower grades of elementary schools in Japan, there is a subject called “SEIKATSUKA”. This subject will later evolve into science and society. Aside from that, it seems that Thailand has classes to learn about Thai culture and seasons.

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The image above is a print of the lesson, but of course it is written in Thai, so I will explain a little. The first is the cover. The second piece is about the Thai season. The third is mainly about meditation. The fourth is about other countries belonging to ASEAN. It is the third piece that should be noted. The third piece describes meditation, but it states that meditation calms the mind of students. Meditation may not be a very advanced religious act, but teaching this action at school makes me; be born in Japan that have policy of separation of policy and religion feel uncomfortable.

In this way, I introduced that Thailand, which has a state religion, actively conducts religious education. By the way, because national religion is Buddhism, it doesn’t seem to have to religion in Buddhism. But they cannot complain about the special treatment of Buddhism as a country.